French former Olympic snowboard champion Karine Ruby has been found dead following a fall on Mont Blanc, French police said on Friday.
The 31-year-old Ruby, who won the giant slalom gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, then a silver at Salt Lake four years later, was found along with a second victim in a crevasse, the local gendarmerie said.
Fabien Saguez, technical director of the French Ski Federation, described Ruby as "an icon of French sport (whose) impact went well beyond snowboard and skiing".
Saguez also ran the Chamonix club where Ruby, six-times world champion and a winner of 65 World Cup races, spent her career until retiring in 2006.
Police said Ruby and two other people she was with fell into a crevasse as they negotiated a glacier.
The third person was airlifted to hospital in Geneva.
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