Twenty-four hours after Arisa Trew won skateboard gold, king Keegan Palmer joined her on top of the podium by winning back-to-back Olympic titles. Editor at Large Louise Evans watched him create history.
With just one killer run Keegan Palmer became the only person to ever win back-to-back Olympic skateboard titles at the Paris Games.
Palmer, 21, laid down a monster first run which elevated him into the No1 position and then came unstuck in his second and third attempts to defy gravity.
It didn’t matter. He’d bumped and jumped and tricked his way across the ramps and quarter pipes to hold onto his lead and win a second gold medal at Place de la Concorde.
He might talk like an American but he skates like an Australian.
“I can’t believe it, I am speechless, I was lucky with everyone falling off their runs,” he said. “I couldn’t hold it together in my last two runs either. I can’t believe it. C’mon Australia, let’s do this. The energy was off the roof it is dream to skate in front of a crowd this big.”
Palmer joined Arisa Trew as the champions in skate park after the tiny 14-year-old fellow Gold Coaster became the youngest Australian Olympic gold medallist by also winning the women’s park event on Tuesday night.
Palmer’s victory also came just two hours after Australian sailor Matt Wearn made history winning back-to-back laser gold medals in Marseille, 750km from Paris on the Mediterranean.
Palmer’s gold was the 16th for Australia and puts the team on course for one of its best ever Olympics with four days to go.
Palmer is a bit of an accidental Aussie. Born in San Diego, California to an American father Chris and South African mother Cindy, he moved with his family to the Gold Coast as a one-year-old.
He started skating as soon as he could walk with his dad to the local Elanora skate park at Palm Beach. He was competing for Australia by the age of eight.
Fast forward to the Tokyo Olympics where a fresh faced 18-year-old Palmer stepped up to win the first skateboard medal ever awarded at any Games.
Coming to Paris as the defending champion gave him chicken skin. “Being a two-time Olympian for skateboarding … that’s wild,” he says, adding he’s “got a few things hidden up my sleeve”.
He certainly did – but just up one sleeve. When the other competitors fell at his feet in the final, elevating him to more glory, he bowed to the crowd and smacked his board hard on the park track that’s been purpose built in the historic Place de la Concorde in the centre of Paris between Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Tuileries Gardens.
“After the Tokyo Olympics the next contests were a battle for me,” he said. “I was dropping in nervous. I have had pressure like that. I learned to harness it. It’s like forming the butterflies in your stomach ready for battle. That’s what I did. I was fired up.”
Palmer said he grew up idolising American’s eventual silver medallist Tom Schaar, who went into the final as the No2.
“I grew up watching these guys skate when I was a kid in Australia. Competing with them on the main stage is amazing.
“I met Tom when he first came to Australia. He was 14, and I was 10. We’ve been competing together even before skateboarding became a thing in the Olympic Games. We’re such close friends, and everyone in the skateboarding community is really close. It’s awesome.
“To stand on the podium with Tom, we’re been talking about this for months. Let’s do it one and two it’s just wild. It’s a huge honour. It’s hard for me not to cry. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t get much better.”
Palmer’s victory was aided and abetted by his lucky jewelry, a “necklace that symbolises the colours of Australia, the green and gold.”
Palmer is known as a Sultan of Bling because he likes a bit of flashy fashion accessory and it certainly brought him good karma.
“It also matches my outfit. I got it while I was in Italy during training camp. My goals are to feel good, look good, and skate good.”
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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