Nothing to do for Laura Dahlmeier: biathlon champion found dead

Unfortunately, what was feared has been confirmed: Laura Dahlmeier was found dead today in the mountains of Karakorum, Pakistan, two days after she was hit hard by a landslide.

Rescue, despite the fact that her climbing partner immediately raised the alarm, was arduous because the area of Laila Peak, the mountain the 31-year-old former German biathlete was climbing, is very impassable.

After a helicopter was sent to fly over the area yesterday, the decision was made today to carry out ground rescue, but unfortunately, once Laura’s body was found, all that was left was to note her death, which probably occurred instantly at the time of the accident.

Laura Dahlmeier, born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, would have been 32 on Aug. 22. In her biathlon career she has won two golds (sprint and pursuit) and a bronze (individual) at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, 7 golds, 3 silvers and 5 bronzes at the World Championships (4 golds, 3 silvers and 4 bronzes excluding relays).

In 2017, her best year, she won the overall, pursuit and individual World Cup. In the Cup, he won a total of 16 races at the individual level, plus the 4 world golds that also counted for the Cup.

Her total podiums between the Olympics, World Championships and World Cup (the so-called “top-level races,” as some call them) are 50, her victories 22. She retired from biathlon in 2019 at age 25 to devote herself to her studies and her other passions, including mountaineering, in which she had become an accomplished climber.

Winter sports are in mourning, and sadly this is not the first case of a mountain accident involving a snow star: on May 29, 2009, Frenchwoman Karine Ruby, the greatest snowboarder ever, died falling off a wall in the Mont Blanc Massif.