World champion ski jumper Alex Loutitt puts in the work to return to her sport

World champion ski jumper Alex Loutitt has unearthed a few silver linings in her rehabilitation from a devastating knee injury.

The 21-year-old Calgarian, who was the first Canadian to win a world title in the sport in 2023 when she was victorious in women’s large hill, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in September’s Olympic test event in Predazzo, Italy.

So Loutitt will not jump there at the Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, in February.

“It’ll be a year before I compete,” Loutitt said from Salzburg, Austria, where she’s rehabilitating at Red Bull’s Athlete Performance Center. “It is unrealistic to think anything else.”

Loutitt’s leg crumpled when she landed a jump in Sept. 19 qualifying for the large hill in Predazzo. Jumpers land on plastic-coated turf instead of snow during the summer Grand Prix season.

She knew from knee surgery in 2022 there was pre-existing weakness in her knee and “it was just like perfectly the wrong move.”

Loutitt underwent surgery in Innsbruck, Austria, under orthopedic surgery and sports traumatology specialist Dr. Christian Fink.

“It was not safe to travel home because of blood clots,” Loutitt said.

Entry into Red Bull’s stable of athletes is often seen as a big payday and next-level marketing, but Loutitt is living the less heralded part of that relationship.

She says her treatment at the Athlete Performance Centre has helped her emotionally come to grips with her 2026 Olympic dream being dashed, while she puts in the physical toil required to return her to her sport. 

“A lot of the time when you are an injured athlete, you’re kind of put on the back burner and I definitely don’t have that feeling being here,” Loutitt said.

“You have other athletes who are in the same situation. There’s an Austrian soccer player who had surgery three days before me with the same surgeon. 

“We’ve become quite close because not very many people can understand what it’s like to go from being one of the best athletes in the world to not being able to bend your knee.”

Loutitt’s days are filled with water therapy, anti-gravity treadmills, hyperbaric chambers and magnetic pulse and electrical stimulation machines.

Loutitt says her attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), diagnosed at age 18, is taken into account as therapists keep her sessions short and purposeful.

“That first couple days were the hardest just because like you really can’t do anything, so you’re just like doom scrolling and it’s just draining you more and more,” she said. 

“Now that I’m doing lots of things, it’s actually perfect. My physio at the APC really understand who I am as a person. My brain is really happy. I basically go from eight until four every day. I feel really motivated and I feel really seen and that I’m not in this alone.

“This is just like definitely one of the like perks you have with signing with them. It’s not like, ‘oh, here’s a paycheque once a year.'”

Loutitt intends to be in Predazzo in February supporting the Canadian team and cheering on her Austrian boyfriend Daniel Tschofenig.

“I’m looking at it (like) I would not be that upset if it was any other year. The biggest disappointment for sure is just not competing at the Olympics, but I’m hoping it will open new opportunities for me not going as an athlete, so maybe being able to go and support my team as service staff,” she said.

“My boyfriend, if I missed him winning an Olympic medal, that’s also something I’d never forgive myself for. It’s one of those things where you can suffer and be hurt, but you still can show up for the people that matter to you.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2025.