A friend, a believer, and a big part of the Bagjump story

On August 25, 2026, we lost Henri Sankala. He was 44. If you spent any time around the Bagjump world in the last fifteen years, you probably met him, jumped on one of his setups, or heard him laugh from across a room. Henri was one of ours, and this one hurts.

Before Bagjump, Henri was already a name in snowboarding. He was ISF Junior Halfpipe World Champion, and in 2002 at the Livigno European Open he sent an 8.5 meter air out of the pipe that ended up on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine. He rode the Arctic Challenge era with the best in the world, and he did it in a way that made sense of his favorite line, “No guts, no glory.” He meant it, and he lived it.

That is where our story with him started. Our co-founder Martin Rasinger and Henri came up through the same snowboard generation, chasing the same lines, sharing the same belief that you had to send it or go home. When Martin began building the first airbag prototypes, Henri got it right away, and he wanted in.

In 2009, Henri joined Bagjump as our Scandinavian distributor. He brought the product to Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and later the Baltics. Over the years he ran between 400 and 500 events across the region, and he never lost the enthusiasm of the first one. If there was a jam, a festival, a resort activation or a random idea somewhere north of the Baltic Sea, Henri was there with a bag, a blower, and a story to tell afterwards.

He was also part of some of the wildest chapters in our company history. Together with Bagjump show jumpers, Henri worked on the world record free drops of 155 and 165 meters. Those are the kind of projects most people would call impossible. Henri just got on with it.

Around 2016 he took on the Sales Manager Europe role, and his impact reached far past Scandinavia. However, after COVID he moved back home, back to the ground he knew best, and kept doing what he did better than almost anyone, connecting people to the product and to each other.

Outside of Bagjump, Henri was a wanderer. Finland and Estonia were home base, but he lived parts of his life in China, Thailand, Austria, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Bali, Costa Rica, and Sweden. He surfed, he read, he asked big questions and was not afraid of the answers. In recent years he founded Quantum Ice, a project close to his heart, and he put everything into it.

Henri fought cancer in his final months, and he fought it the way he did everything else, openly, without pretending, and surrounded by people who loved him.

“We had a long snow era together, and Henri believed in Bagjump when nobody else did in the beginning. He stepped up as a great friend and helped me make this company reality and push it worldwide,” said Martin during a short chat about Henri.

From all of us at Bagjump, thank you Henri. For the trust in the early days, for the events and the friendships, and for being exactly who you were. We will miss you.

Safe travels, brother.