Canadian skier Nik Zoricic died on Saturday after crashing in a World Cup ski cross race in the Swiss resort of Grindelwald, Alpine Canada said.
Officials said Zoricic crashed in the finish area during the fourth heat of the ski cross finals.
“We’ve lost one of our athletes on the ski World Cup and you can imagine everyone in the organization is just devastated getting that news this morning,” Alpine Canada president Max Gartner said. “Nik as far as I know is a model athlete. He’s extremely dedicated who has gone about his business and found his home in ski cross.”
The 29-year-old Zoricic sustained severe head injuries in the crash. He was airlifted to hospital in Interlaken and was pronounced dead at 12:35pm local time.
Zoricic had raced on the World Cup for more than three years and finished eighth at last year’s world championships.
The cause of death was given as “severe neurotrauma.”
“We have been working ... very closely with race organizers to assess exactly what happened and what we know is Nik crashed into the safety nets after he completed the final jump during the fourth heat,” Gartner said. “The accident took place in the finish area; no other racers were involved.”
FIS officials immediately abandoned the race and canceled yesterday’s World Cup events.
Alpine Canada grief counselors were meeting with skiers, who planned to hold a candlelight memorial in the finish area in Grindelwald.
It was the second tragedy to rock the Canadian ski racing community this year following the death of Sarah Burke, an X Games champion and gold medal favorite in the half-pipe at the 2014 Olympics, in a training accident in January in Utah.
“These ski accidents are rare and there is going to be an investigation,” Gartner said. “Safety is at the forefront of the organization on an ongoing basis, we are always very concerned about our athletes when we send them out to compete against the rest of the world.”
Ashley McIvor, a teammate of Zoricic and the women’s gold medal champion in ski cross at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, said skiers were aware of the dangers they faced in their sport.
“The ski world is like one big family, in ski cross we are tight knit crew,” McIvor told reporters. “This is absolutely horrible.”
“The fact is there are risks associated with our sport and pretty much everything I do in life,” she added. “We do these sports because we love them, but there are risks associated with them and there is only so much we can do to minimize those risks.”
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