A professional skier and his girlfriend fell to their deaths more than 2,000 feet while climbing mountains in the Italian Alps, the country’s sports officials said.
The death of the two, Jean Daniel Pession and Elisa Arlian, was reported by the FISI, the Italian winter sports federation, which described the episode as an “accident” and a “terrible tragedy.”
Pession and Arlian, both Italian, were climbing a ridge on Saturday that divides the east and north faces of Mount Zerbion, a mountain in the Pennine Alps that they both knew well. As is usual in climbs of this type, they were tied together. They were alone, so it is not known precisely how or why they fell.
When relatives reported him missing, rescuers began a search. A helicopter with equipment that detects cell phone signals located their bodies. Italian television channel TG3 reported that the pair were almost at the top when they fell.
Ms. Arlian was a ski and elementary school teacher. Pession, 28, had competed on the World Cup speed skiing circuit, in which athletes ski downhill trying to reach the fastest speed possible, often 125 miles per hour or more. She was ranked 15th in the world rankings in 2021 and 33rd in 2022.