Karine Ruby, who became one of snowboarding’s first stars when she won a gold medal for France at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, died on Friday morning in a climbing accident in the Mont Blanc Massif near Chamonix, France. She was 31.
She was killed after falling into a 20m crevasse while leading two climbers on a tour through the Tour Ronde section, said Captain Benoit Tonanny of the gendarmerie in Chamonix.
One other climber was killed, and the third was in critical condition when he was airlifted to a hospital.
Ruby, who had competed at the highest level since she was a teenager, won two Olympic medals, six world championship titles and 67 snowboard World Cup victories.
“In the snowboarding world, she was an unavoidable icon,” Joel Franitch, the French Skiing Federation’s director of snowboarding, said in a telephone interview. “It’s a huge loss for the sport.”
Franitch said that snowboarding in France owed much of its popularity to Ruby’s burst onto the scene in the late 1990s.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon echoed that sentiment in a statement released within hours of her death, calling her an “exceptional sportswoman” and saying that she “embodied the emergence of snowboarding in France.”
Ruby shot to fame in France during the 1998 Winter Games, the first Olympics that featured snowboarding as a medal sport. Fighting brutal weather conditions that contributed to the wipeout of seven of the 31 competitors, she became the first woman to win a medal in the new event.
She picked up silver in the parallel giant slalom at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, finishing behind her countrywoman Isabelle Blanc.
Since retiring after the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, where Ruby was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the snowboardcross event, Ruby had devoted herself to her passion for climbing.
She grew up in the mountainous region of Haute-Savoie, and the Alps were always her backyard. She was training to be a certified mountain guide and was expected to wrap up her training in the coming weeks.
Taiwan’s men’s table tennis team won bronze on Saturday at this year’s International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships in London, matching the country’s best-ever finish at the regular tournament. Consisting of Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7, Feng Yi-hsin, Kuo Guan-hong, Hong Jing-kai and Hsu Hsien-chia, the team won bronze after losing 0-3 to Japan in the semifinals. In the opening match, 24-year-old Lin played the first game against world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto 11-5, but ultimately lost the next three closely contested games 9-11, 10-12 and 10-12. Feng then faced world No. 8 Sora Matsushima in
Taiwanese fire dancer Yang Li-wei advanced to the final of Britain’s Got Talent this weekend after receiving a Golden Buzzer during her live semi-final performance. Yang, a member of Taiwan’s Coming True Fire Group, awed judges and audiences with a high-intensity fire performance featuring flaming umbrellas, fire swallowing and spinning metal structures balanced with her legs. Judge Simon Cowell praised Yang as a star, while guest judge KSI reacted with amazement before pressing the Golden Buzzer, sending her to the finals. The dance group wrote on social media that the Golden Buzzer was “the highest honor” on the talent show, adding: “Twenty-three years
Memphis Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke, 29, has died, the NBA team said in a statement on Tuesday, while the family of Jason Collins, the first openly gay man to play in a major US pro sports league, announced the former Grizzlies and Brooklyn Nets player had died after a battle with brain cancer. “We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of Brandon Clarke,” the Grizzlies said in a statement posted on social media. “Brandon was an outstanding teammate and an even better person whose impact on the organization and the greater Memphis community will not be forgotten.” The statement did not provide
As Super Rugby fast approaches its playoff season it finds itself racing toward a reckoning with many issues that threaten the southern hemisphere tournament. A group of stakeholders met in the New Zealand city of Christchurch late last month to address problems that are making the future of the 31-year-old competition increasingly tenuous. The discussion was made more urgent by the decision by the owners of Moana Pasifika to fold the Auckland-based club for financial reasons. That followed the closure of the Melbourne Rebels at the end of the 2024 season, likewise because of financial difficulties. Problems addressed included player retention as more
RSS