Karine Ruby killed by crevasse fall

Olympic snowboarding champion Karine Ruby and a client have been killed by a crevasse fall on Mont Blanc. A second client is in a serious condition. Ruby won Olympic gold for the snowboarding giant slalom at Nagano in 1998. Ruby passed the grueling guiding exams last summer along with 46 other candidates.

karine ruby

The accident occurred just before midday today as Ruby and her two clients were descending the glacier du Géant at 3300 meters altitude near the col d’Entrèves. They had completed a climb of the 3800 Tour Ronde. A snow bridge gave way under the weight of one of the rope and they fell 25 meters into a crevasse. Conditions were described as “good” by the police but May has seen a rapid thaw with record temperatures and the zero isotherm above 4000 meters on consecutive days.

As well as winning the first Olympic gold snowboarding medal, Ruby was world champion six times, won a silver in the 2002 Olympics and had 67 world cup victories. She ended her career in 2006 after the Turin Olympics. There are just 20 female French mountain guides. Less than 1% of the total. An excellent climber as well as snowboarder Ruby was training to join that elite group. Last year she featured prominently in a French Television documentary following trainee mountain guides.