Troy Podmilsak

Park City, Utah, USA | Active: FIS status active | Discipline: freeski big air and slopestyle | Verified: 2023 Big Air World Champion, 2024 X Games Big Air gold, 2026 Olympic Big Air 4th, 2025-26 FIS Big Air Crystal Globe | Current: 2026 U.S. Olympic Freeski Team, K2 / Outdoor Research / Monster Energy sponsor profile

Livigno Snowfall And The Podium Line

Snow was blowing through the Livigno lights when Troy Podmilsak rolled into the big-air final, the ramp white at the lip and the landing half-erased by fresh flakes. He had qualified tenth, but the final did not leave room for a quiet score.

His first jump scored 90.50. His third brought 94.00, enough for 184.50 and fourth place in the first Olympic final of his career. Tormod Frostad won gold with 195.50, Mac Forehand took silver with 193.25, and Matěj Švancer earned bronze with 191.25. Podmilsak missed the podium, but the result confirmed his place in the highest-risk tier of men’s big air. He arrived as World Cup leader, left without an Olympic medal, then answered one month later by locking the season’s Crystal Globe in Tignes.

Bakuriani Gold, Aspen Gold, Tignes Globe

Podmilsak’s résumé is unusually dense for a skier born in 2004. He won the 2023 FIS World Championships Big Air title at Bakuriani, added X Games Aspen Big Air gold in 2024, finished fifth at the 2025 World Championships in Engadin, qualified for his first Olympics in 2026, placed fourth in Olympic Big Air, and then secured the 2025-26 FIS Big Air Crystal Globe.

The result spread matters because each platform measures him differently. World Championships gave federation weight. X Games gave action-sports credibility. The Olympic final gave scale and pressure. The Crystal Globe rewarded season-long scoring across World Cup starts. Podmilsak is not yet an Olympic medalist, but his current profile is more than potential. It is a competition record built around the biggest one-jump stage in freeskiing.

Liberty Snowflex Before Park City Snow

Podmilsak started skiing at three on the Snowflex dry slope at Liberty University in Virginia. U.S. Ski & Snowboard records that his family moved to Park City when he was six, and that he started skiing park at that age. That detail gives his biography an unusual first surface: not powder, not groomed Utah snow, but synthetic slope repetition before the mountain years began.

Park City changed the scale. The resort and club system gave him rails, jumps, airbags, coaches, and a daily freeski environment tied to one of the strongest American park scenes. U.S. Ski lists Park City Ski Team as his club, while FIS lists him under Park City Ski and Snowboard. The setting also placed him near the generation he studied, especially Colby Stevenson, one of his stated early models.

Leysin Double Gold And The Chur Signal

The first major international proof came at the 2022 FIS Junior World Championships in Leysin, Switzerland. Podmilsak won gold in both men’s freeski big air and men’s freeski slopestyle. Luca Harrington took silver in big air, Matthew Labaugh finished second in slopestyle, and the results placed Podmilsak inside a junior field that would soon feed the senior World Cup.

That same year, the senior transition began to show. X Games lists his 2022 Chur World Cup third place as a career highlight. Chur is not a soft big-air venue. It is a festival ramp, exposed to weather, crowd noise, and the strange feeling of doing huge tricks on a temporary city jump rather than inside a mountain park. For Podmilsak, Leysin proved he could win both full-course and one-jump formats. Chur proved he could score against senior fields.

The Triple 2160 That Changed His Name

Bakuriani 2023 is the career hinge. In the Big Air final, Podmilsak opened with a switch right double bio 1980 safety, then landed a right triple cork 2160 mute in run two. FIS wrote that the trick was so clean judges first scored it as an 1800. U.S. Ski & Snowboard described it as the world’s first triple 2160 landed in competition.

The trick changed his public name because it moved beyond a normal medal run. A 2160 demands six full rotations. Adding triple cork mechanics makes the axis harder to read. Holding mute through that rotation requires body compactness, timing, and enough awareness to find the landing without opening too early. Podmilsak was eighteen and competing at his first World Championships. The medal and the trick became inseparable.

How T-Pod Builds Big-Air Pressure

Podmilsak’s skiing is built around high rotation with clean shape. His vocabulary includes switch right double bio 1980 safety, right triple cork 2160 mute, forward triple cork 2160, right triple cork 1800 mute, switch right triple cork 1980 safety, switch doubles, triple rotations, mute grabs, safety grabs, and the landing control needed to keep those tricks inside a final format.

Compared with Mac Forehand, Podmilsak looks slightly more explosive and less smooth through the setup. Compared with Alex Hall, he is less puzzle-driven and more direct in the air. Compared with Birk Ruud, he has less all-event polish but a higher-risk big-air identity. Compared with Matěj Švancer, he looks less theatrical and more compressed. The clearest pattern is pressure tolerance. His biggest tricks have arrived when the field was already heavy: Bakuriani, Aspen, Livigno, and Tignes.

Secret Garden And Steamboat Opened The Olympic Door

The 2025-26 season gave Podmilsak the World Cup base his résumé had been missing. He won the Big Air World Cup season opener at Secret Garden, China, then won again at Steamboat Springs in December. The Steamboat result helped secure his first U.S. Olympic team spot.

Those two wins mattered because they came before Olympic selection pressure settled. Secret Garden carried Beijing-era memory, cold Chinese winter air, and a ramp built for big scores. Steamboat brought the contest home, with a U.S. selection event and Konnor Ralph joining him in a one-two American finish. Podmilsak had already been a world champion and X Games winner, but World Cup wins showed that he could lead a season, not only peak at a single event.

Slopestyle In Livigno Did Not Hold

Podmilsak’s Olympic week also had a hard slopestyle chapter. The official result line placed him twenty-eighth in men’s freeski slopestyle qualification. That number matters because it keeps the profile honest. He is a slopestyle-capable skier with Junior Worlds gold in the discipline, but his senior identity is now much more weighted toward big air.

Livigno’s slopestyle course was difficult for several riders. Rail precision, speed through transitions, jump-line confidence, and landing management all had to work in one run. Podmilsak did not reach that final. The difference between his slopestyle result and his big-air fourth place shows the current shape of his career. Full-course skiing remains part of the record, but the one-jump arena is where he is already a title-level athlete.

K2, Outdoor Research, Monster, And The Schiller Thread

U.S. Ski & Snowboard lists Podmilsak’s equipment sponsors as K2 and Outdoor Research, with Monster Energy listed as a sponsor. X Games also notes that he is coached by former X Games competitor T.J. Schiller.

That support thread fits the skier. K2 gives the ski platform for hard takeoffs, huge rotations, and landings that punish small mistakes. Outdoor Research covers the mountain-weather layer around training and travel. Monster connects him to the action-sports side of big-air visibility. Schiller’s role is especially interesting because he comes from an earlier X Games era, when trick invention and contest showmanship were closely linked. Podmilsak’s current skiing still lives in that space: one jump, one risk, one score, one trick that might not have existed before.

Active Status After The Crystal Globe

FIS lists Podmilsak as active, with FIS Code 2535007, birthdate August 23, 2004, and United States nationality. U.S. Ski & Snowboard lists him on the 2026 U.S. Olympic Freeski Team, with six years on the team since 2021. The current competitive endpoint is Tignes 2026, where he finished third and secured his first Big Air Crystal Globe.

The watch path for skipowd.tv should start with Leysin 2022 for the double junior title, then move to Chur 2022 for the first senior podium. Bakuriani 2023 is essential for the triple 2160 mute, Aspen 2024 for X Games gold, Secret Garden and Steamboat for World Cup wins, Livigno 2026 for the Olympic fourth, and Tignes 2026 for the season title. Podmilsak is still in the early part of the career, but the big-air record already has a world title, an X Games gold, a Crystal Globe, and one of the defining tricks of the current rotation era.