Troy Podmilsak’s rise reads like the kind of story parents tell at kitchen tables: a kid hooked on a sport so early his family rearranged their lives around it, and a parent who watched that gamble pay off.
Podmilsak started skiing on a dry slope in Virginia at age three, and when his family moved west to Park City, Utah, he found the terrain that would let him push the sport’s limits.
From the beginning, he stood out. He learned park skiing as a child, landed double corks while most kids were still learning to ride a chairlift, and at 12 became the youngest person to pull a double cork 1440 in a contest.
Sponsors and attention followed. A 2018 Under Armour “Crush the Limits” spot put a teenage Podmilsak alongside other rising athletes and signaled that he was more than a local prodigy.
His father, Scott Podmilsak, was there in the early days, the parent who moved the family from Reston, Virginia, and kept showing up for practices, competitions, and the messy logistics of a competitive childhood.
“Every parent, I think, thinks their kid is going to be the next Shaun White,” Scott told reporters in 2018.
“But you start understanding how to spot those anomalies that come along.” After the Under Armour shoot, he admitted what a lot of parents see later: his son really was different on the slopes.
Podmilsak sharpened those early signals into results. He won double gold at the FIS Freestyle Junior World Championships as a teenager, became 2023 Big Air world champion with a landmark trick, the first triple 2160 mute grab landed in competition, and took big air gold at the 2024 Winter X Games in Aspen.
He kept climbing the World Cup ranks and collected a FIS World Cup victory at Secret Garden in the 2025–26 season opener.
All those headlines set the stage for his Olympic debut. At the 2026 Winter Games, he was one of Team USA’s most-watched freeskiers, the one people said they wanted to see try the next-level tricks he has made his calling card.
He delivered solid runs under brutal conditions and narrowly missed a medal, finishing fourth in the men’s big air final with a combined score that left him just out of the podium places.
It was a near-miss, raw and crushing in the moment, but also a clear statement that a new generation of American freeskiing had arrived.
Podmilsak answers questions about pressure and ambition with the bluntness of someone who simply likes to do the work. “I really want to be the best and just win everything,” he’s said.
“I couldn’t tell you why I want to win so badly or what gets me up to do that. That’s just it.”
Off the hill, he’s known as “TPod,” likes golf and pizza, and posts highlights of training and travel; his childhood clips and the 2018 commercial helped lay the groundwork for the kind of profile sponsors and fans now flock to.
Family remains central. Scott, his nana, and his three siblings traveled to support him through training and events, and the family’s move to Park City is now the turning point people point to when they talk about sacrifice.
After his Secret Garden win, Troy said it “hadn’t hit me yet… I’m really proud of my skiing and I’m just happy that my parents got to watch me today. To win in front of them was a dream come true.”
That line got picked up not because it was novel, but because it captured why those early, sometimes risky choices mattered.
What stands out about Podmilsak’s skating is the combination of raw technical ambition and a steady work ethic.
He has repeatedly shown a willingness to try new rotations in competition, and those attempts, successful and unsuccessful, are the engine of progression in freeskiing. Judges reward the difficulty and execution; crowds respond to the drama. Podmilsak gives both.
The Olympic fourth place will sting, but it also marks the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
He has already set records, pushed trick difficulty, and claimed world and X Games titles; now he has the Olympic experience and the scrutiny that comes with it.
At the same time, he is still young in a sport where careers can stretch if the body holds and the motivation stays.
For fans and loved ones, the story is simple and inspiring: a kid who started on a carpeted slope in Virginia, whose parents moved the family to chase opportunity, has become one of the most exciting skiers on the planet.
He makes the sort of tricks that rewrite the list of what’s possible, and he does it with a family watching from the stands.
That mix, talent, risk, support, is why people in Park City and beyond are already talking about what he’ll land next.
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