In honour of International Women’s Day, we are taking some time to celebrate the success of local skier Kirsty Muir and to shine a light on how she continues to inspire others.

Hailing from Kingswells in Aberdeen, 18-year-old Kirsty has already achieved so much on the global stage by bringing medals back from competitions across the world. Kirsty was still at school when she competed in her first Winter Olympics in February 2022 and has since left school, becoming a full-time athlete.

Muir competes in freestyle skiing, also known as ‘freeski’. The disciplines involved in freeski competitions are aerials, moguls, dual moguls, ski cross, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air. Kirsty primarily takes part in slopestyle, big air and half-pipe, finding great success across all three disciplines.

In 2018, she burst onto the scene aged only 13, competing at her first British Championships. She blew her older competitors out of the water. Muir went on to take home gold in the slopestyle, big air and half pipe.

She continued her meteoric rise onto the free ski stage the following year in 2019 where she went on to win her first Europa Cup event and then picked up a silver and bronze later in the season at the Junior World Championships.

At the Winter Youth Olympics in 2020, Kirsty won a silver medal in the Freeski Big Air event – a statement performance and only narrowly missing out on the top step of the podium. She recorded a score of 170.00 from her best two runs, 30 points off the maximum score possible and only 1.25 points away from the gold medal.

At her Winter Olympic debut in Beijing in 2022, Muir finished in 5th place in the Big Air and 8th in the Slopestyle competition. As Team GB’s youngest competitor, she impressed the masses by qualifying for two finals and showed her talent on the biggest stage of all. Her eyes are already set on the next Winter Olympics in Turin 2026, which will be closer to home and she’ll be skiing with more experience under her belt.

In January 2023, Muir travelled to Colorado to compete in the Winter X Games where she won bronze in both the Big Air and Slopestyle events, whilst completing her first-ever 1620, 4.5 full rotations, securing herself the Big Air medal and wowing the American crowds.

Kirsty is proud to represent Aberdeen and regularly pays a visit to the Adventure Aberdeen Snowsports Centre where she first discovered her love for skiing. When you consider that most of her competitors come from Canada, Norway, Austria and other alpine countries where snow and outdoor skiing is more accessible, it is really amazing what she has achieved.

We will of course be keeping a keen eye on Kirsty as she pursues her career in professional skiing and you can follow her Instagram here to keep up to date with her journey.

If you have been inspired to give skiing or snowboarding a go, click here to find out more and book a taster session at Adventure Aberdeen Snowsports Centre in Garthdee.