Confident and a little 'crazy,' Alex Loutitt leaps into Canadian ski jumping lore

Before she turned 10, Alex Loutitt became "obsessed" with ski jumping after watching the sport at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Before she turned 20, the Calgary native was an Olympic medallist.

"I always grew up saying I want to win Canada's first Olympic medal for ski jumping, and the kids on the playground would be like, 'Yeah right, OK, you're crazy,'" Loutitt said in a recent interview with CBC Sports.

"But I mean, I graduated high school an Olympic medallist, so I wasn't that crazy."

Loutitt, now 19, was part of the Canadian squad that won bronze at the 2022 Beijing Olympics in the mixed team event.

As it turns out, that is the exact kind of adversity in which Loutitt thrives.

"I say my brain is like a block of Swiss cheese. I've got a lot of holes in my head and there's random thoughts in these holes, but with a little bit of pressure it's just one thought," she said.

In January, Loutitt became the first Canadian woman to ever win a World Cup event, taking top spot at a competition in Japan weeks after returning from a fractured foot. Her next competition begins Thursday with the world junior championships in Whistler, B.C.

WATCH | Loutitt soars to World Cup victory:

She initially suffered the injury in July, but it was misdiagnosed by doctors as an ankle sprain that merely required a week or two of rest. Loutitt fought through immense pain to continue training.

Finally, in the middle of a September training, she received the news of a fracture.

"I was on the hill and my coach was like, 'You need to go in ... I just got a call from the doctor, you shouldn't even be walking on your foot right now,'" Loutitt said.

When Loutitt returned to World Cup action in December, Ski Jump Canada was hoping for a top-15 finish.