Olympics French Olympic snowboarder Julie Pomagalski dies in avalanche in Swiss Alps
Source: Washington Post
Olympics
French Olympic snowboarder Julie Pomagalski dies in avalanche in Swiss Alps
By Cindy Boren
March 24, 2021 at 1:10 p.m. EDT
Former Olympian Julie Pomagalski, a snowboarder from France, died Tuesday in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.
Pomagalski, 40, won gold in snowboard cross in the 1999 world championships and competed in the parallel giant slalom in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and the 2006 Turin Games. Her death was announced Wednesday by the French ski federation, which said that Bruno Cutelli, a guide, also died.
The federation did not pinpoint the location of the avalanche, but the Associated Press, citing French and Swiss media, reported that it had occurred on Gemsstock mountain in the Swiss canton of Uri.
Pomagalski, who originally was from the French resort of Méribel, was the granddaughter of Jean Pomagalski, who is credited with inventing the first ski lift in 1934 and founded the brand Poma in 1947.
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Cindy Boren
Cindy Boren arrived at The Post in 2000 as an assignment editor in charge of baseball and NFL/Washington Football Team coverage. She switched to full-time writing, focusing on national sports stories and issues, when she founded The Early Lead blog in 2010. Follow https://twitter.com/cindyboren
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/24/julie-pomagalski-dies-avalanche/
French Olympic snowboarder Julie Pomagalski dies in avalanche in Swiss Alps
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Died doing what she loved, I suppose, so there is that. sigh... 
Jean Pomagalski (né le 17 avril 1905 à Cracovie et mort le 9 juillet 1969 à Grenoble) est un ingénieur-mécanicien né en Pologne et naturalisé français qui fut un pionnier dans le développement des remontées mécaniques pour les skieurs.
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Biographie
Attache à douille de téléski débrayable, inventée par Jean Pomagalski en 1944.
Avec le développement du ski alpin, Jean Pomagalski entrevoit le potentiel des remonte-pentes et construit, de l'été 1935 à février 1936, avec deux amis, un premier téléski à perches artisanal à l'Alpe d'Huez sur les pentes de l'Éclose. Il s'applique à perfectionner la technique et pense à rendre les perches débrayables pour leur permettre d'être stockées en gare et mises à la disposition à la demande.
Après plusieurs tentatives de développement d'attaches découplables qui ne donnent pas les résultats escomptés, il imagine en 1944 le système d'attache à douille. L'invention est installée pour la première fois par son employé, Pierre Montaz, sur le téléski du Lac Blanc à l'Alpe d'Huez, puis est perfectionnée en 1946 par un entaillage de la douille destiné à parer tout glissement de la perche sur le câble. Les téléskis à perches débrayables fonctionnent, encore aujourd'hui suivant ce principe d'attache.
En 1958, Jean Pomagalski se lance sur le marché du télésiège et, suivant une commande de James Couttet, livre un premier exemplaire en France en 1960 à Chamonix-Mont-Blanc : le télésiège du Glacier des Bossons5. En 1965, il lance des premières études pour la réalisation d'un « produit télécabine ». Cela aboutit à la commercialisation des télécabines automatiques SP4 à pince S. La forme ovoïde des véhicules qui équipent ces appareils fait que le grand public les surnomme rapidement « les œufs ».
Avec le développement du ski et les constantes améliorations des matériels (télésièges, télécabines), la société Poma, qu'il a créée, est devenue un des leaders mondiaux du secteur du transport par câble.
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Poma, incorporated as Pomagalski S.A., and sometimes referred to as the Poma Group, is a French company which manufactures cable-driven lift systems, including fixed and detachable chairlifts, gondola lifts, funiculars, aerial tramways, people movers, and surface lifts. Poma has installed about 7800 devices for 750 customers worldwide.
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History
A 1960s Poma double chairlift in Vermont, USA
In 1936, Jean Pomagalski installed their first ski lift on the Eclose Trail in l'Alpe d'Huez in France. In 1947, he founded Pomagalski S.A. in Fontaine, France. The first Poma chairlifts were built in 1958 in France and the United States. 1967 brought the first detachable gondolas built by Poma. The prototype gondola by Poma was the La Daille gondola at Val D'isere and installed in 1966 but replaced in 2018. The corporate headquarters and the production shops are still in Fontaine, but since 1988 most of their management, design engineering, sales and service offices are in Voreppe, France. Poma currently employs approximately 750 people worldwide.
Early Poma chairlifts were installed at Squaw Valley, California for the 1960 Winter Olympics. Poma also supplied lifts for the Olympic Winter Games at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1984, at Albertville, France in 1992, at Lillehammer, Norway in 1994 and has worked on the lifts for the 2014 Games at Sochi, Russia.
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week from nature.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/sport/katherine-diaz-killed-surfing-spt-intl/index.html
"
CNN)A 22-year-old Olympic surfing hopeful from El Salvador has died while training for an upcoming qualifying competition, the country's surfing federation (FESASURF) has confirmed.
Katherine Diaz was in the water at El Tunco beach in southwest El Salvador on Friday when she was struck by lightning, FESASURF told CNN."
In fact, there have been more avalanche deaths in Colorado this year than for a very long time.
I have a nephew who is an outdoor/hiking enthusiast. Beyond enthusiast. He and a friend took his dog and went up to camp overnight in the Front Range outside of Ft. Collins on March 14th, the night of the incredible blizzard. He just posted a youtube video of it. I couldn't believe it. The avalanche risk that night was RED, above, near, and below the treeline. He claims he checks the risk before he goes out, but I suspect it may be some grandiosity that he knows all the risks. They couldn't even drive the Jeep out the next day. Had to walk out and come back for it several days later.
Avalanche risks are not to be taken lightly.
This was the risk assessment on 3/14, the day of the blizzard:
As more snow falls, the avalanche danger will continue to rise. The Front Range has already added a foot or more in many areas and is set to see even more throughout the day. Vail/Summit and Steamboat/Flat Tops are tracking more in the 8-inch range this morning but should crest over a foot or more as by day's end. Many steep slopes will be dangerous to ride today, and in deeper areas, may fail naturally. Add in some unusual loading patterns from easterly and northerly winds, and you have some serious hazards to manage today. Under these conditions, avoiding avalanche terrain is the only way to mitigate your risk. This has been an unusual storm, and we expect some unusual avalanche behavior.
Triggering avalanches in the new snow is the primary hazard to watch for today. If you find storm snow over 10 inches, you can trigger a slide big enough to do you harm or potentially bury you if you were in larger terrain. In areas where the snow is piling up in the 2 foot or greater range, any avalanche you trigger could easily bury you. There is also good potential to see avalanches breaking deeper into old, weak snow. Areas along the Front Range with a thinner snowpack before this storm are prime candidates for more massive avalanches. Add 2 to 3 feet of snow to a weak snowpack, and boom, big avalanche breaking to the ground. We're less confident in this happening west of the divide, but there's plenty of snow for transport, and slopes could see rapid loading if the winds pick up.
Anybody wants to see two crazy guys camp out overnight in the middle of an epic blizzard, here's the youtube link.