Credit: Instagram/ @laura_dahlmeier
Attempts to recover the body of Laura Dahlmeier, former biathlon champion victim of an accident in high assembly in Pakistan, were abandoned because of the extreme dangerousness of the site, announced its management agency on Thursday.
“The recovery of Laura’s body is possible, but this has incredible risks, on foot as in helicopter,” a member of the rescue team, the American Jackson Marvell, told AFP.
He added that he would now be “disrespectful” to try to recover his body, because it went against his will.
“His wish”
“We decided that she had to stay (where she is), because it was her wish,” the German mountaineer Thomas Huber told the press who participated in rescue operations.
The ex-champion “had expressed clearly and in writing that, in such a situation, no one had to risk his life to rescue her,” recalled his agency, who said that his relatives “would continue to monitor the situation … and reserve the possibility of organizing” an attempted recovery “on a later date”.
The seven -time world champion and double Olympic biathlon champion, aged 31, was a victim of a fall of stones on Monday at 5,700 m altitude, while trying the ascent in pairs of Pic Laila, a mountain of the Karakoram chain, in northern Pakistan.
“I saw Laura being hit by a huge stone, then being projected against the wall. And since then, she had never gave a sign of life again,” his partner of Cordée, Marina Krauss told the press.
Rescuers believe that the champion is “dead on the spot” on Monday, based on “the observations made during the overflight” of the zone by helicopter and “of the partner’s report” of Cordée, according to the victim’s agency.
Queen of the Hochfilzen Biathlon World Cups in 2017, with five titles and a silver medal in six events, Laura Dahlmeier had then won gold in sprint and pursuit, as well as individual bronze, at the Pyeongchang Olympic Games in 2018.
She had ended her career in 2019, at the age of only 25 years.