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Alex "Chumpy" Pullin has died at the age of 32, leaving a legacy as one of Australia's greatest snowboarders.
With parents who owned a ski store in the foothills of Victoria's Mt Buller, Alex "Chumpy" Pullin had a handy head start in the world of winter sports.
He coupled that with a powerful riding style, calm demeanour and Formula One race tactics to become one of the pre-eminent snowboard cross exponents in the world.
The 32-year-old from Mansfield, who died on the Gold Coast on Wednesday after drowning in a spear-fishing accident, was part of the new breed of Australian winter sports stars.
Following on from the likes of Steven Bradbury and Alisa Camplin, who famously secured Australia's first Winter Olympics gold medals within 48 hours of each other in 2002, Pullin too would often be the last man standing.
But in a sport often described as motocross on snow, he actually left as little as he could to chance.
He excelled in drafting; patiently riding the icy course full of banked turns and jumps before executing daring overtaking manoeuvres when he deemed the time right.
His strategic approach helped net him nine World Cup gold medals and two world championships. Between 2011 and 2013, he dominated the circuit and appeared to make a crap shoot predictable.
But in a sport that can see six racers sometimes jostle in corridors as narrow as 10 metres, there are always going to be bumps along the way.
Unfortunately for Pullin, his came at the Winter Olympics.
A relative unknown at the 2010 Games in Vancouver, Pullin briefly captured the nation's attention when he qualified first for the head-to-head racing before crashing out in his heat.
Four years on and with two world championships under his belt, he was Australia's flag-bearer and favourite at the Sochi Games.
It ended in a misty haze on the Rosa Khutor course where he was eliminated in the quarter-finals.
In 2018, his rough ride looked over when he went all the way through to the decider in South Korea, only to finish sixth as teammate Jarryd Hughes snatched silver.
While results thinned out after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, he battled on and had been competing on the World Cup circuit as recently as March in Europe.
Home-schooled on a yacht as a child with his sister Emma as his parents sailed the world between snow seasons, the guitar-loving surfer had something of alternate upbringing, but he told AAP in 2011 it made him.
"At three or four, I would be taking a dinghy into the beach by myself. There was never that protection. We learned to be independent. We got taught the right way to do things," he said.
"So when I started going overseas (at the age of 15 by himself to snowboard), it wasn't a big deal.
"I knew it was a gift; a real opportunity."
