Shaun Palmer
Some of you younger peeps may only know the name “Palmer” from his snowboard brand - but back in the day, he wasn’t just a legendary snowboarder, he excelled at virtually every sport he tried.
I spent a few days hanging out with Palmer at the 1996 World Mountain Bike Championships (well, actually, he was kinda hanging out with us - because he was trying pretty hard to crack on to a hot friend of mine), and it was cool to see both sides of him (work/play) up close. When he was partying, he was a nice, carefree, fun guy - but when he competed, he was scary. Sure he was ‘scary’ fast and ‘scary’ talented - but I actually mean he was literally SCARY! His level of focus was so intense, he was like a leaky canister of nitroglycerin!!! In a testament to his incredible skill, in his first ever season of competing in downhill mountain biking he came second in the world by only 0.15 of a second - in a testament to his overwhelming competitiveness, he was FUMING!!!
Anyway, as you can see above, there’s now a doco about the bad boy USA Today once described as “The World’s Greatest Athlete”. It’s probably worth a watch.
The guy is certainly a freak.
Might have to watch that one, thanks for sharing Chuck 
Looks sick. That would be an interesting doco for sure.
chucky, do you know Bob Klein by any chance?
Fun Fact - in 1997 when I was living in Tahoe we ended up with a stray puppy. We named him Palmer!
That crash of his in first decent is pretty nuts.
I remember certain clown antics on old VHS vids I used to watch.
I remember certain clown antics on old VHS vids I used to watch.
On the last night of the World Champs, MTB company RockShox hosted an industry party, and one of the bars in the club where it was held had non stop actions sports videos running on a bank of TV screens. At some stage that night I was having a beer and a chat with Palmer - he had his back to the screens and I was facing them. It was kind of a surreal experience to be chatting with Palmer, when there’s snowboard footage of him playing on huge screens behind him.
chucky, do you know Bob Klein by any chance?
I wish.
^ Sure, I may be right into snowboarding history etc. - but my knowledge would be like the little tip of an iceberg you can see poking out of the water, with Bob’s being the HUGE chunk underneath.