Canada’s Horseshoe Resort is installing high-performance freestyle training facility complete with steep downhill dry slope and a big airbag.

The installation of the facility began at the Ontario ski area in Late July and is expected to be completed by September.

The facility will include a 50 metre long, 22 metre wide BagJump airbag, and 14 and nine-metre jumps designed by Park Degree, with the dry slope in-run supplied with a surface from JF DrySki.

Unusually, the facility will also include two 2m x 4m trampolines.

The facility is planned to be for the exclusive use of members of Ontario ski teams, not for the general public.
Currently the Canadian team trains on a slope in Austria, but Horseshoe hope that will no longer by necessary and resort management hope the facility will also bring teams from abroad as well as proving a spectator facility for resort guests.

This kind of facility has become increasingly important in the development of freestyle. New tricks are tested and increasingly needed to be proved to work on the airbag slope rather than trying them first on a hard snow, surface.

“The days of going out and throwing a backflip on snow in a contest don’t exist anymore, they have to certify it on an airbag with a coach before they can practise it on snow and use it in a competition,” a spokesperson for the new facility explained to local media.