RENO, Nev.—An extreme skiing champion based at Lake Tahoe has been killed while jumping off a cliff with a parachute while filming a movie in Italy.
Shane McConkey, 39, lived and trained at Squaw Valley’s Olympic Village south of Truckee, Calif. He won several national and international skiing competitions, including the X Games and World Extreme Skiing Championships.
He founded the International Free Skiing Association and had grown popular in recent years for his BASE jumping competitions and big-mountain film exploits.
The film company Matchstick Productions confirmed his death on Thursday. He is survived by his wife, Sherry, and 3-year-old daughter, Ayla.
Scott Gaffney, a longtime friend of his in Tahoe City, said McConkey was an “icon and a legend” in the sport.
McConkey was attempting a cliff jump in the Italian Dolomites when he died. He helped pioneer the so-called BASE jumps off cliffs using parachutes, the Vail Daily in Colorado reported Friday.
McConkey lived in the Vail Valley during the early 1990s and competed on the Pro Mogul Tour. He ran an annual ski camp in Chile with Chris Anthony, a Vail-based pro skier who skied with McConkey at the University of Colorado.
Anthony described McConkey as “super inspirational, very innovative, and always sort of thinking about what the next thing is that we could do.”
