Winter Olympics: Teenager Kirsty Muir aiming to challenge idol & soak in debut Olympics
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Kirsty Muir is set to make her Olympic debut aged 17 at Beijing 2022
A 13-year-old Kirsty Muir watched the women's slopestyle skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics on a portable DVD player in the back of her parents' car.
Along with her brother and sister, she was travelling across the sprawling Aberdeenshire countryside heading for the mountains.
Muir had recorded the event - only the second time it had featured on the Olympic programme - and was gripped by Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud battling it out for gold with a series of fantastic tricks.
"At that point I was like 'I want to do this'," Muir, 17, tells BBC Scotland. "But I can't say there was an exact point, it just gradually built towards it."
By 13, Muir was already among the best freestyle skiers in Britain. Last year she got her first senior World Cup podium and finished sixth at the World Championships to add to two junior world medals and a Youth Olympics silver.
The journey - which started aged three on the dry slope in Aberdeen - will continue in Beijing at a first senior Olympics.
Previously described as a "once in a generation athlete", the incredibly relaxed Muir takes it all in her stride.
"I've definitely just been trying to enjoy the journey," she says. "There are a lot of different things I want to do in my career, and going to the Olympics would be one of them, but I don't want to make it my be all and end all in a sense.
"I don't think I feel any pressure from anyone. I'm just doing what I can. In the end I just have to try my best and try to zone everything out. It's just me and the course, you know?"
So what possesses a young person to throw themselves from massive jumps and along rails?
"I was at a Saturday kids' club and they went to the freestyle slope at the end of each session and they suggested I try it," Muir recalls. "I started the freestyle nights because they could see that I loved it.
"I was seven at the time. It was all for fun, there was no thought of what could happen. Especially at that point because the sport wasn't in the Olympics. And it was at the age of 10 - on my 10th birthday, actually - I did my first front flip."
Muir's natural ability had her travelling the world for competition - fitting in schoolwork online at night and attending Bucksburn Academy in Aberdeen when not on the road - which was a welcome dose of normality for a teenage girl.
She enjoys switching off while at home and going out walking with the family's three black Labradors - one of which playfully interrupts the Zoom call to gift Muir a cushion.
"When I'm home I try to just be a normal teenager in the sense of going to see my friends, going to school and that sort of thing," she adds.
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Now her chance is coming to do battle with her idol Hoefflin, the Swiss Olympic champion, who lived in the UK between the ages of 12 and 22.
Hoefflin has been generous in her advice to Muir, who will now attempt to overtake her as the queen of slopestyle.
"I've always looked up to her. I met her when I was 10 or 11 and at the British Championships. I've just watched her journey and been inspired. She's such a lovely person and she's done some amazing things for progressing women's sport.
"What I'm aiming for is just putting down a solid run that I'm proud of. In the end, the only person I know I can make proud is myself. Everyone goes to a competition and tries to do their best but you're never going to know the outcome."
The Olympics is not the only challenge facing Muir in 2022 either as she prepares to sit her second batch of Higher exams.
Having just been invited to and competed at the prestigious Winter X Games the teenager has a bright future, but one that might differ to her friends and classmates.
"Right now in school they're talking about what uni you'd like to go to and what you want to study but I have absolutely no idea. I just want to go off and ski.
"I feel like Mum and Dad want to support me in what I do - I'm so thankful about that. At some point if I take a gap year I'll go back to some sort of study. But other than that I'd really like to keep progressing as the women's sport progresses."
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