Metal skis were invented in Baltimore. Now a local company is outfitting an Olympic star.

Alex Ferreira will launch himself more than 50 mph down a halfpipe Friday morning, corkscrew and flip through the air, then land, speed up the ramp and do it again.

All the while, the U.S. Olympic freestyle skier will grip custom poles — created in Baltimore.

One of Charm City’s best-kept secrets might be its ties to skiing, past and present. An aircraft engineer invented aluminum-plated skis in Baltimore in the 1940s and, today, Zipline Ski, a Baltimore-based company, provides equipment to several Olympians competing in the 2026 Games in Italy.

They include Ferreira, a Colorado native aiming to top the podium in his third — and likely final — Olympics. He uses skis from a German company, but Zipline outfits his poles, which “combine strength and lightness with innovative hexagon graphite technology,” according to the company.

Zipline was founded more than a decade ago in Baltimore by Chuck Heidenreich, who skied for the U.S. in the early 1980s, before freestyle skiing was an Olympic sport. Since then, gold, silver and bronze medalists have used Zipline gear.

Ferreira won silver and bronze in 2018 and 2022 and is focused on gold this year.

“It’s time to complete the set,” he said recently, according to Time.

Ferreira, 31, is among the most likely to medal, although 19-year-old Finley Melville Ives of New Zealand, last year’s world champion, is the betting favorite.

Ferreira’s quest was scheduled to begin Thursday in Livigno, Italy, but qualifying rounds were postponed due to heavy snowfall. Instead, qualifiers were scheduled to begin at 5:30 a.m. Eastern on Friday, with the finals later in the day.

Ferreira is one of the world’s most decorated halfpipers, but he might be better known to popular audiences by an alter ego.

His Hot Dog Hans persona — an old, crass skier — has more than 1 million followers across social media platforms. For the last six years, Ferreira has donned a gray-bearded mask, a la Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew, and wowed other skiers with his surprisingly impressive moves and shockingly crude jokes.

NBC teased a faux documentary of Ferriera’s character Thursday on social media.

“Ninety years old,” read a caption. “Still sending it.”

Aside from Zipline, a larger Baltimore-based brand has a presence in Italy, too.

Under Armour sponsors, among others, American skiing legend Lindsey Vonn, who recently tore her ACL but sought to compete in the Olympics; Mikaël Kingsbury, a gold medalist skier; Cale Makar, a Canadian hockey defenseman playing in the semifinals Friday; and Tomoka Takeuchi, a Japanese snowboader who competed in her seventh straight Olympics. The company also outfits USA’s speedskating, bobsled and skeleton teams.

Skiing as a sport dates to the 19th century, and alpine skiing joined the Olympics in 1936. In those days, athletes used wooden skis.

It wasn’t until 1947 that Howard Head, an engineer at the Glenn L. Martin Co.’s aircraft plant in Middle River, developed a modernized version. Head said he was “humiliated and disgusted” by his poor skiing ability on a trip to Vermont, so he drew upon his aviation experience to build an improved ski with aluminum coating.

By the 1950s, he and a few associates formed a company in downtown Baltimore, creating about 1,000 pairs a year. Eight years later that number grew to 30,000, and then it reached hundreds of thousands by the mid-1960s.

He later innovated tennis rackets, and the company he formed, Head, still exists today, producing tennis and ski equipment.