Mack's done it again—of all the unconfirmed, undocumented skateboard rumors of the 90s, this might be the grandaddy of them all. Tom Penny, skateboarding's most mysterious and enigmatic pro, disappeared in Europe at the height of his fame in the mid 90s, and the rumors of stuff he was doing abroad spread like wildfire, and like most rumors, sounded too insane to be real. One such was a rainy-day kickflip down France's biggest double set. Now, 24 years later, the evidence has emerged:
Nathan Kraus/Deadhippie.ca
Read Mackenzie's deep dive on deadhippie.ca.
"At the peak of his powers and fame—Penny departed the United States in ‘96 to live in Europe. At that exact moment, a stream of far-fetched sounding rumors of things Tom had done all over the EU (mostly without footage or photos) opened up like a folkloric flood. You could hardly visit a spot or skatepark on the continent without some insane sounding tale like; “Penny drank seven tall boys, ate a bag of shrooms, then nollie bs flipped into this vert ramp from the deck with a spliff in his hand.” Every town had one. One such tale from Bordeaux—near where Tom lived with his mother, ran something like; “Tom kickflipped one of the biggest sets of stairs in France—in the rain with a sprained ankle—and didn’t even bother telling the filmer flown out to film him or call a photographer.” 24 years later, we can actually prove that this specific myth was absolutely true, down to every last detail. Read on."
More from Mackenzie on Tom Penny:
Deadhippie.ca
As always, hats off to Mackenzie for finding closer to these mysteries all these years later. Spend some time on his #skatenerdstarmaps page too!
