Four friends, four fates The deadly series of Laura Dahlmeier's climbing clique
Former Olympic biathlon champion Laura Dahlmeier died in a fatal accident in the Karakoram mountains. Particularly tragic: she is the fourth person from her closest circle of climbing friends to die in the mountains.
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- Laura Dahlmeier (31) dies during an expedition in Pakistan.
- The mountaineer has not yet been rescued.
- She is the fourth member of her climbing clique from Garmisch to die.
The mountains were Laura Dahlmeier's passion - and proved to be her undoing. The seven-time world champion and two-time Olympic champion in the biathlon died in a fatal accident at the age of just 31 during an expedition in the Karakoram mountains. Her body has not yet been recovered due to adverse weather conditions.
What makes her death in Garmisch particularly tragic is that she is the fourth member of her old climbing clique to die in the mountains, as the German newspaper "Bild" has discovered. In her autobiographical book "Wenn ich was mach, mach ich's gscheid" (2023), Dahlmeier wrote impressively about previous losses - and the question of how much risk a life is worth.
She experienced her most profound loss in 2018 when her close friend and touring partner Franz-Xaver "Xari" Mayr was killed by an avalanche while ice climbing in South Tyrol. "He had been practically immortal to me, and I never expected him to be the first of us to die!" she wrote.
She remains silent about one case
After the news of his death, she fell into a phase of anger, numbness and indifference - and questioned her own willingness to take risks. "I was just so angry about the whole situation: 'Why did this have to happen? And why him, why can't it be me?"
According to Bild, Dahlmeier spoke openly about her grief, her inner withdrawal - and about the realization of how fleeting everything can be. After the third death in her family, she learned a clear lesson: "You can't put things off."
One of the other fatalities was her ex-boyfriend Robert Grasegger, who died in an avalanche in Patagonia in 2022. She kept quiet about the third death from the clique in her book.
Now Dahlmeier herself has joined this tragic series - as the fourth climber not to return. Her fans, friends and companions mourn the loss of an exceptional athlete with an unquenchable thirst for the mountains.
