Alexa Scott

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When and where did you begin this sport?	She took up speed skating in 2010 in Brandon, MB, Canada. "I started speed skating when I was nine and I transitioned to the Manitoba provincial team when I was 13."
Reason for choosing this sport	She tried figure skating at first but was not very interested, so she switched to speed skating. "I would just rush through my programme because I hated all the twirls and stuff. But I loved skating, so my coach is like, 'You should go try speed skating'. So I went out to Brandon, Manitoba. My mum drove me out. And I tried speed skating, and I've been hooked ever since."

Ambitions	To compete at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. (globalnews.ca, 24 Jan 2019)
Injuries	Her training was disrupted ahead of the 2020 World Junior Championships in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland, due to illness. She went on to win bronze in the mini combination event at the tournament. (winnipeg.ctvnews.ca, 28 Apr 2020; speedskating.ca, 22 Feb 2020) She was troubled with a back injury for eight weeks prior to winning gold medals in all four distances at the 2020 Canadian Junior Long Track Championships in Calgary, Alberta. (speedskating.ca, 06 Jan 2020)
Awards and honours	She was named 2019 Junior Athlete of the Year by Sport Manitoba in Canada. (sportmanitoba.ca, 01 Mar 2021; winnipeg.ctvnews.ca, 28 Apr 2020)
Other information	MULTI-SPORT BENIFITS She struggled with back injuries early in her skating career, which she contributes to repetitive skating from an early age. "I did do a lot of speed skating as a kid. I did a lot. My power muscles were very strong at a young age. But my body had not been programmed enough to stabilise my joints. I got a lot of back injuries at a pretty young age, like 16. It was because my stabilising muscles weren't stabilising. They were completely neglected in my body." She tried a number of sports growing up, including football, volleyball, swimming and athletics, and believes practising multiple sports in an athlete's youth can allow the body to fully develop and help prevent future injuries. "Maybe if I hadn't focused on speed skating so early in my life, I could have saved some of those injuries. I would have developed some of those stabilising muscles from soccer, especially like stopping and turning. I think if I did more sports in middle school, especially, I could have maybe limited how aggressive that injury was. All sports work on different things. Volleyball is more of a power sport, because you're jumping to hit the ball over the net. Soccer is more of a cardio sport. [In speed skating] you get a lot stronger on one side of your body than the other. So, having other sports, like swimming, swimming is a full-body cardio burn, it's good for both sides of your body, equally. I think it made me a better athlete so that I wasn't always just turning one way." (sportmanitoba.ca, 01 Mar 2021)