Professional skier Juliette Willmann has been killed after being swept 1,300ft down a mountain in an avalanche.
Willmann, 29, was buried beneath five feet of snow after the horrific incident in the Patagonian Andes, Argentina on Tuesday.
She had been skiing with her newlywed husband, Pierre-Idris Mehdi, 30, when a mass of snow crashed down the Cerro Creston mountain and swept up the couple at around 12:30pm, according to the Government of Santa Cruz.
They plummeted a shocking 1,312ft from their starting height of 10,171ft as they were both engulfed and Willmann was buried beneath the ice and snow.
Skiers desperately dug through the snow attempting to rescue her as a distress beacon rang out before mountain rescue, police, Civil Defense services and medics scrambled to find the pair.
The victims were found hours later at around 5pm, with Willmann’s husband surviving the avalanche and being evacuated for treatment.
Professional skier Juliette Willmann has died in an avalanche in Argentina at 29 years old
Wilmann was skiing with her husband, Pierre-Idris Mehdi when tragedy struck on the mountain
Willmann was buried under the snow for hours before being found and pronounced dead
But his wife was discovered without vital signs and could not be revived after multiple rounds of CPR. An investigation into her death is underway.
The professional freeride and ski mountaineering athlete competed in the Freeride World Tour between 2019 and 2022 and was from a well-known ski family in France.
Her dad, Phillippe, is a former French alpine ski coach who trained the women’s national team while her older sister, Alison, raced for the national alpine team.
‘Juliette Willmann has indeed died. She is a professional skier who is well involved in local life,’ confirmed Olivier Greber, president of the Chamonix guide company, contacted by AFP.
‘Pierre-Idris Mehdi (her partner) is not doing too badly obviously but he is very affected. I think they were newlyweds.
‘He has been a guide here for two years and is one of the young sharp guides in the valley. He had left in mid-August, I think, for this trip, the reason for which I don’t know.’
Before tragedy struck, she shared a post reflecting on how ‘lucky’ she was to be traveling through Patagonia with her husband.
She wrote on Instagram: ‘We feel so lucky to be here, in the mountains of Patagonia, exploring this amazing place. This trip in South America keeps blowing our mind.’
Willmann (left) was part of the Freeride World Tour between 2019 and 2022
She gushed over their trip to Patagonia in a heartbreaking final post before her death
Willmann was part of a French ski family that was well-known in the local community
Willmann, who skied on some of the most extreme mountains in the world, including at around 19,700ft in Nepal, had previously warned about the dangers of such landscapes.
Speaking in a 2024 documentary, she said: ‘In the mountains you are vulnerable. The mountains decide and you have to listen to them, you have to respect them.
‘Experience plays an important role, but I’m still at the beginning of the process.’
