The highlight reel of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics was defined by extreme tricks—corkscrews, twists, and flips performed by snowboarders and freestyle skiers.

These aerial feats are complex, but in many cases, they can be traced back to a simple tool: hours spent spinning and flopping into oversize plastic bags.

Over the last 20 years, a handful of manufacturers—such as Bagjump, Progression Airbags, and BigAirBag—have perfected the art of making massive plastic landing pads, ideal for aspiring extreme sports athletes to push the boundaries of their skills and test out new tricks year-round. Beginning with the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, athletes like Shaun White, Kevin Pearce, Danny Davis, and Sage Kotsenburg began making extensive use of this kind of training, similar to the way gymnasts would use foam pits. 

“The extreme levels the sports are being performed at are much safer due to Bagjump training,” says Martin Rasinger, a former pro snowboarder and the inventor of the device.

Subscribe to the Design newsletter.The latest innovations in design brought to you every weekday

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

SIGN UP

Privacy PolicyFast Company Newsletters

Sites that have these systems, relatively few and far between, have become destinations for advanced training. Wy’East Mountain Academy, an extreme sports-focused secondary school in Sandy, Oregon, installed a $4 million bag on its slopes last year that’s open year-round. The 80-by-200-foot airbag, contoured to the curve of the mountain and installed using snowcat vehicles, is the largest in North America, and something that is relatively rare in the U.S. Smaller versions can be found at the U.S. Ski & Snowboard headquarters in Park City, Utah, and temporarily on California’s Mammoth Mountain. 

Troy Podmilsak, a U.S. freestyle ski jump competitor who landed a “Triple 18” in Milan during competition—three off-axis flips combined with five full rotations—trained on the Wy’East bag before the Games.

Bagjump says there are around 20 locations around the world decked out with their landing pads, including their own Banger Park facility in Scharnitz, Austria.

© Fast Company