#Teenage climbing star with Olympic hopes dies after 500-foot fall from cliff

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Luce Douady of France competes during the women’s bouldering final competition of the International Federation of Sport Climbing world cup in 2019.
AP

A 16-year-old rising star in the climbing world, who was expected to compete at the 2021 Olympics, died after plunging nearly 500-feet from a cliff in the French Alps, officials said Monday.

Luce Douady, 16, fell Sunday as she and a group of friends were crossing a tricky footpath between two climbing areas on a cliff in the Grenoble area, according to Agence France-Presse.

The French Mountain Climbing Federation (FFME) said that Douady had been a “very promising” young athlete on the French climbing team and “brilliant in competition.”

She was “a lover of all facets of climbing,” the FFME said in a statement announcing her tragic death.

The teen had won the junior world championships in 2019 and was expected to compete at next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, where climbing will make its debut, according to Yahoo! Sports.

In a tribute on Facebook, her climbing club remembered her as a “young woman full of energy, passion and talent” who was “a beautiful person.”