Legendary South Lake Tahoe snowboarder Shaun Palmer, who tore his Achilles' tendon in January, has been named to the invited athlete roster for the 2006-07 Jeep King of the Mountain Series Skiing and Snowboarding Professional Championships.

The Jeep King of the Mountain series has four event weekends for the upcoming season, with the first one scheduled for Dec. 2 in Snowbird, Utah. The other three events are in Austria, New Mexico and Colorado.

In the men's snowboarding division, Palmer joins Seth Wescott, Graham Watanabe, Nate Holland, Mario Fuchs and Drew Neilson on the invited list of riders. Holland, whose home mountain is Squaw Valley, is the only other Tahoe invited athlete in the series' four divisions (men's snowboarding, women's snowboarding, men's skier and women's skier).

At each venue, the format of the series involves two pure ski events, two pure snowboard events and two unique events that combines both skiing and snowboarding. In addition to the invited athletes, a group of qualifiers will also compete for more than $450,000 in prize money at the four locations throughout the season.

Palmer hopes to cash in after missing the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, following a successful boardercross season on the World Cup circuit. He had four top-5 finishes, including a second-place finish on Jan. 4 in Austria that cemented his spot in the U.S. Olympic boardercross team.

But after tearing his Achilles' tendon at a World Cup race in Italy, he was replaced on the team by Sierraville's Jayson Hale. Palmer underwent successful surgery at a Round Hill medical facility shortly after injuring his Achilles.

At the time, Palmer's agent Bob Klein said his client was eyeing a possible 2010 Olympic bid, but was more focused on getting healthy for a return to the 2007 Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo. Palmer won six gold medals at the X Games in four different disciplines from 1997-2000.