American Competitive Skier Believed to Have Been Killed in Kosovo Avalanche
Renowned competitive skier Catherine "Kasha" Rigby is feared dead in an avalanche in Kosovo after reports surfaced earlier this week that a 54-year-old skier was killed in the deadly slide.
The news was first reported on Tuesday by Euronew.albania, according to Fox News, which said that a 54-year-old female skier was killed at the Ski Center in Brezovica, Kosovo. Ferizaj region police spokesperson Kanun Veseli likewise told Radio Free Europe that the victim was "a 54-year-old foreign citizen."
Though the reports did not specifically name Rigby, friends and loved ones began posting tributes to her Instagram account in the wake of her apparent death. In her last post from earlier this week, Rigby described the conditions at the resort.
"Sideways rain, a big melt, and winds too high to run lifts, doesn’t keep these skiers and sledders off the t-bar and slope," she wrote. "While seeking winter our [tour] continues, running the fringes of resorts. We have had a few chances to poke around up high, but today we were back in the lower country."
She added that she as "still just happy to be in the snow."
Ski publications such as Ski Magazine and Backcountry are also reporting the news of Rigby's apparent death. Backcountry editor Adam Howard, who grew up near Rigby in Vermont and later attended Western Colorado University with her, penned a tribute to the athlete on Thursday.
"Kasha was bigger than skiing," Howard wrote. "Among so much more, she embodied compassion and free-spiritedness. The whole outdoor and ski world is just gutted to lose such a special soul. There was a magic in her."
Rigby was born in Vermont, where she learned to ski as soon as she could walk. She then moved to Colorado as a young adult, becoming involved in racing and extreme-skiing competitions, before eventually landing in Utah, where she resided permanently.
She was once credited as being "the best female telemark skier in the known universe" by Outside magazine. Telemark skiing is a technique that combines both elements of Alpine and Nordic skiing, in which the rear foot is leveraged to keep balanced while pushing on the front foot.
Among her many professional accomplishments, Rigby is credited with being the first skier to achieve a climb and telemark descent of the Himalayan's Cho You, the sixth highest mountain in the world.
