Ski jumper Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes takes to the air again for Canada

Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes has returned to ski jumping after a hiatus of two and a half years.

Boyd-Clowes laid down Canada's final jump of the mixed team event at the 2022 Winter Games for bronze and the country's first ever Olympic medal in the sport.

The four-time Olympian is back in the air again. Boyd-Clowes competed in a pair of September competitions and provisionally qualified for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.

"It's new and fresh and exciting. I took a long break and wasn't sure whether I would jump again and now I'm doing it," Boyd-Clowes said.

The 34-year-old from Calgary would join a tiny group of veterans who competed for the host country in 2010 in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., and remain Olympians in 2026.

Hockey players Marie-Philip Poulin and Sidney Crosby are among them, although Crosby skipped 2018 and 2022 because the NHL did.

Given the dearth of Canadian ski jumping facilities and the need to live abroad most of the year to pursue the sport, Boyd-Clowes' bid to be a five-time Olympian is complex.

He'll shuttle between Canada and Europe. The national ski jumping team is based in Slovenia.

"The path to competing at the Olympics is probably as different as can be from competing as a hockey player," Boyd-Clowes said.

Burnout prompted him to take a break in 2023.

"One of the most difficult parts of being a ski jumper in Canada is that there are no ski jumps in Canada," he said.

"The amount of time spent away, and for myself, maybe my teammates were better equipped to handle it than I was, but I was just so narrowly focused on the sport at all times and kind of obsessed. That's a gift and a curse.

"Balance is always a tricky one. I want to maintain the excitement level I have for the sport