Acadia student the only Canadian to bring home two medals at 2025 FISU winter games

One of our very own made the podium at the International University Sports Federation (FISU) Winter Games in Torino, Italy this month. Amy McCarthy (first-year, math and stats) was the only Canadian to bring home not one, but two medals from the 2025 games.

The FISU, an international celebration of university sports and culture, takes place every other year in a different city around the world. Thousands of student athletes converge to compete in the event, which is among the world’s largest winter multi-sports competitions. Basically, it’s the Olympics for university athletes.

With a total of 78.75, Amy scored the silver medal in Slopestyle, and 71.75 points earned her the bronze in Big Air.

Amy was selected as one of just seven snowboarders to represent the best that Canada has to offer at the 2025 games.

“I kind of just applied for fun,” Amy says. “I thought it was a longshot. I really just did the application to try and when I was selected, I was shocked.”

Before being prompted by her coach to apply for FISU, Amy was prepared to end her career in competitive snowboarding. Being from Nova Scotia, she says, the goal for young snowboarders is usually the Canada Winter Games, and then when that’s over people tend to just keep it up for fun. Which is exactly what she was planning to do.

“It was just a given that I would be done,” she says.” But now, having two medals under her belt, “it makes it a little harder to say goodbye.”

From tentative applicant to medalist, Amy’s journey to Italy is an incredible one. She says that when she won her medal, “it was unbelievable. I actually didn’t believe it at first.”

Amy hopes to follow up her incredible performance in Italy with her sights set on the next FISU games in Norway in 2027.

It’s going to be a challenge to balance her studies with all the travel required for a competitive snowboarder, but so far, she’s finding that her professors are not only understanding, but excited for her to have the opportunity to compete.

“I don’t think my professors have had a student come up to them and say, ‘I’m going to Italy to compete in snowboarding’ as a reason for missing class,” she says. “A lot of them were just pumped for me and they were all super supportive.”

Amy doesn’t know yet what she wants to do with her math and stats degree. But, she says, “that’s what I’m here to figure out in the next couple of years.”

For now, she plans to kick back, enjoy her win, and finish up her degree in math and stats. And, of course, continue to hit the slopes at Wentworth to show the locals what a two-time FISU medalist looks like.

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