Shane McConkey started his career as a ski racer. In 1994 he was already achieving success and became the South American freeskiing champion. Over the next few years he continued to win championships in freeskiing in the Americas and in Europe. He also placed well in mogul challenges. In 1999 he started exhibiting his real love – extreme skiing. He started entering worldwide competitions and came in second in ESPN’s X-Games Skier Cross. He went on to place in many extreme sports competitions around the world.
Extreme ski enthusiasts followed McConkey’s athletic feats in his many extreme skiing movies. He was known for moves combining BASE jumping with skiing.
Shane McConkey was also a ski designer. He invented the reverse sidecut and reverse camber (rocker) skis. He developed some specialty bindings that fastened to water skis that were useful in Alaska, as well as the Volant Spatula and K2 Pontoon designs.
McConkey died tragically while performing a jump he’d done many times before. On March 26, 2009, he performed a double back flip. This feat usually concluded with a wingsuit glide, like a parachute. This time,
however, one of his skis failed to release. While working to release it he fell too far and could not deploy the parachute. He died before anyone
reached him.
Shane McConkey's Career Highlights
1992: Appeared in his first of 22 movies, “Nick Nixon's Ski Theater”
2001: McConkey was given ESPN’s Action Sport Award for Skier of the Year. He also topped the list of the 25 best North American skiers as rated by Skiing Magazine.
2002: Powder Magazine’s reader poll voted him #1.
2003: Accomplished his first BASE jump
2004: Powder Magazine awarded him the Full Throttle award and the Best Helmet Cam award. An astounding double front flip off the infamous Eiger made him an instant action sports athlete star.
2005: McConkey became the World Alternative Sportsperson of the Year, and
was also nominated for the Laureus World Sport Award.
