From backyard trampoline to sibling rivalry: Megan Oldham’s journey to freestyle skiing history
The X Games champion shared with Olympics.com how a bounce pad in her garden and the 'extra nudge' from her brothers helped her become the first female freestyler to land a triple cork.
Freestyle Skiing
One brother is good. Two is better.
At least if you are a freestyle skier who benefits from a healthy dose of sibling rivalry like Canada’s Megan Oldham - and if you can put that rivalry aside long enough to join forces and install a trampoline in the family backyard.
The bounce pad has become an essential training tool for the 22-year-old Olympian while the extra push from her brothers Bruce and Cody have given Oldham the fearless mentality to keep pushing boundaries.
This included becoming the first female to successfully complete a triple cork in a ski or snowboard event on her way to yet another Winter X Games title.
"Growing up in an atmosphere with two brothers definitely hardens you up a bit," Oldham told Olympics.com. "As a girl, you want to keep up with them and prove yourself. So I think having my brothers, they pushed me to be a little bit tougher and try to catch up to them. That really helped me in terms of the skiing."
Now a three-time Winter X Games champion and world medallist, Oldham continues to prove how tough she can be, be that in a snow park or during a family summer vacation. Olympics.com caught up with the history maker to find out about her family dynamics, off-season training, the lessons she learned at Beijing 2022, and what new trick she is planning to unveil this winter season.
Megan Oldham: How I landed that historic triple cork
Oldham made headlines when she became the first female athlete to land a triple cork in competition. The feat earned her a gold medal in the Big Air event at the 2023 Winter X Games in Aspen, but what's even more remarkable is that it was the first time she has ever attempted it on snow.
All the earlier attempts - repetition after repetition - were done on an air bag or trampoline.
The Canadian freestyler is as comfortable on a trampoline as she is on skis thanks to her background in artistic gymnastics and the proximity of one to her front door.
Oldham and her brothers negotiated with their parents to let them set up a trampoline in the backyard to practise aerial tricks in the off-season. Not an easy negotiation considering that their father and mother are lawyers.
"We have an Olympic tramp in our backyard that we've kind of in grounded, so we've got grass all around it, and we convinced our mom to let us get a mat so that we can practise some harder tricks," Oldham said. "It's been good this year just to jump on the trampoline when I got home and not necessarily have any other ways to train. So I enjoy that. Just enjoying the trampoline, working on tricks with my brothers."
The trampoline also proved helpful when Oldham landed her most famous trick in January 2023. While the height difference of a trampoline and Big Air ramp are substantial, Oldham could still hone basic skills, such as take off and her power through the air.
The rest she compensated for with the strength of her mind.
"I've also been working with a sports psychologist and I really learned the power of visualisation. So for me, I trained a lot that trick and then going into X Games, I would just think about the trick and visualise exactly what my body would be doing and how it would be feeling in that moment," Oldham explained. "That played a huge role in the success that I had just because I felt that confidence inside of me of, 'OK, I know how to do this. I've done it a million times in my head. And now I just have to repeat'."
Having seen the benefits of her backyard trampoline workouts, Oldham made sure to include them in her preparation for the 2023/24 season as well.
"I spent a lot of time again on the air bag this summer, both with my team and also individually," she said. "I was trying to get as much time and repetition on the air bag to work on some new goals, jump wise, that I can bring to snow."
Megan Oldham: A winter champion made in summer
Seeing who can jump the highest and do the most complex air trick is not the only way Oldham and her brothers compare their physical prowess during the off-season.
The siblings also contest who can go the fastest, who can get the furthest or who is the most flexible.
Oldham’s summers are packed with physical activities, including running, hiking, yoga and surfing. This past summer her oldest brother Bruce - an ultra-marathon enthusiast - and his girlfriend joined Oldham in Bali where the three would wake up at seven in the morning to do yoga, followed by hikes through the lush Indonesian landscape.
Bruce Oldham made the Canadian team in 2023 and is expected to join his sister on the World Cup circuit during the season.
"It's nice," Oldham said about the prospect of extending their joint summer trips into winter terrain. "I always have him to bounce tricks off of and ask him for advice or get him to give me that extra little nudge because he knows me personally and what I'm capable of."
Whether it encourages Oldham to try a new trick in the snow park or wake up at the crack of dawn to do sun salutations, the "extra nudge" is sure to give the skier a boost this winter season.
A relaxing yoga session, however, may not require a nudge at all.
"It's definitely something that I try to keep up with throughout the season," Oldham said. "We have someone who travels with us, a strength coach, and we typically will do recovery sessions in the evening or do some breathwork or yoga to bring our heart rate back down before we go to bed and just quiet the mind, so I do enjoy keeping up with it outside of skiing."
Oldham's bag of tricks: Beijing 2022 vs Milano Cortina 2026
In 2022, Oldham’s on-snow heroics took her to Beijing where she made her Olympic debut.
While on paper the Games results – fourth in Big Air after topping qualification and missing the finals in slopestyle – seem disappointing, Oldham has nothing but words of gratitude for the experience.
"Being in front of the crowd and having that pressure and learning how to perform with that was definitely a big lesson that I'll take away. And I was really happy with my performance although it's a near miss. It's hard to experience that, but at the same time I felt like I skied my heart out. I did the tricks that I had that were my best," she said.
"In Big Air, there's really nothing that I can look back on and say it went wrong, which I'm really happy about because as much as it sucks to come one spot out, I threw all the tricks that I had on the line. There was nothing more that I could do to up my score... In terms of slopestyle, you had to play a little bit of a strategic game when it comes to qualifiers, and I think I just tried to dial things back a little bit too much to secure that spot in finals and unfortunately, you fall off a rail early or you miss a grab slightly and that's it. I definitely learned to try and trust yourself."
Oldham plans to focus on the X Games this season and use it as a building year ahead of Milano Cortina 2026.
And that means expanding her range of tricks even beyond the dizzying triple cork.
"One of my big goals would be trying to complete three different doubles in a run. I think that would be really monumental for women to be at that same level of guys where we're doing three different doubles, different directions in a single run," Oldham said. "On top of that, pushing more triples and spin variations. We could get up to 18, 19 [feet]. I think that would be really cool to see.
"Women's progression in the sport has gone crazy over the last few years and I don't really see any signs of it stopping. I think that everybody in the field right now is really pushing to keep that barrier moving forward. Personally, doing the triple was a big step for me, but I think we still have a lot more to prove."