SHAWN RHODEN IN MEMORIAM Tribute to 2018 Mr. Olympian

On November 6, 2021, 2018 Mr. Olympia Shawn “Flexatron” tragically passed away at the early age of 46. MD would like to remember this great champion who was taken from us much too soon.

- RON HARRIS

FLEXATRON ORIGINS

Shawn grew up in Jamaica, where soccer, cricket and track are all major sports. He excelled at soccer and nearly had a tryout with D.C. United when he moved to Washington, D.C. at the age of 15. Rhoden was also a competitive swimmer. At 17, there was a break between soccer and the swim team, and he decided to try weight training to strengthen his upper body before that season started up again. As luck would have it, his cousin John Lancaster, who had already competed in a few local teenage bodybuilding shows, offered to take him to his gym and show him how to train.

“It didn’t seem like the workout was anything too tough, but the next day I woke up and everything was in pain! I was sore all over,” Shawn said of that fateful first day. “John showed up to take me to the gym again and I told him to get lost.” But John wouldn’t take no for an answer, and soon Shawn’s body responded and started to change.

Shawn’s competitive career may not have happened were it not for losing his dual college scholarship for soccer and swimming after severing nine tendons in his hand after an accident involving a plate glass window. “After that I figured I might as well keep bodybuilding,” he told us. “My grip was so weak with that hand that I had to strap in for everything – curls, bench presses, even squats. The hand would swell up with fluid every so often and I’d have to go get it drained.”