Sophie Hediger, a member of Switzerland’s national snowboard cross team, who competed in the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, died on Monday in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps, the country’s ski federation said. She was 26.
Hediger was a regular competitor on the international race circuit in snowboard cross, which involves multiple snowboarders racing one another down an undulating course that includes jumps. Less than two weeks ago, she competed in a World Cup race in Cervinia, Italy.
In January, she reached the podium for the first time in a World Cup race, finishing second in a competition in St. Moritz, Switzerland. In February, she finished third in a World Cup race in Gudauri, a ski area in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia.
At the 2022 Olympics, Hediger and Kalle Koblet finished seventh in the mixed team snowboard cross race, which the Americans Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner won, and 19th in the women’s race, which Jacobellis won.
On Monday at 1:15 p.m., a woman later identified by the Swiss ski federation as Hediger was snowboarding with another person down a closed black diamond slope in Arosa, a mountain village in eastern Switzerland, when the pair left the slope, according to an initial report from the police in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.
Hediger was caught in an avalanche, and her companion notified rescue services and began searching for her, the police said. Rescuers from the Swiss Alpine Club, avalanche search dog specialists, employees of the ski area’s cable cars and members of the Alpine police responded.
The rescuers were able to locate Hediger buried in the snow around 3:30 p.m., but they were unable to resuscitate her, the police said. She died at the scene, the police said.
Walter Reusser, the chief executive of Swiss Ski, the country’s ski and snowboarding federation, said in a statement on Tuesday that the organization was stunned. Hediger grew up in Horgen, Switzerland, south of Zurich, and spent a lot of time in Arosa, the statement said.
“For the Swiss Ski family, the tragic death of Sophie Hediger has cast a dark shadow over the Christmas holidays,” he said. “We are immeasurably sad. We will honor Sophie’s memory.”
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