Karine Ruby

	Karine Ruby
Full name	Karine Ruby
nation	France
birthday	4th January 1978
place of birth	Bonneville, Haute-Savoie
size	165 cm
Weight	61 kg
job	Mountain guide
date of death	May 29, 2009
Place of death	Mont Blanc
Career
discipline	Snowboard alpine ; snowboard cross
End of career	March 2006
Medal table
winter Olympics
Snowboard world championships
	Placements
	World cup
Debut in the World Cup	November 24, 1994
World Cup victories	67
Overall World Cup	01. ( 95/96 , 96/97 , 97/98 , 00/01 , 01/02 , 02/03 )

Karine Ruby (born January 4, 1978 in Bonneville , Haute-Savoie , † May 29, 2009 at Mont Blanc ) was a French snowboarder and Olympic champion .

Career

overview

Ruby was the world's most successful snowboarder. She participated in three Olympic Games and won two Olympic medals. At six world championships between 1996 and 2005, she was able to win six gold and four silver medals. In the FIS Snowboard World Cup she won six times in the overall World Cup and thirteen times in the discipline World Cups.

Together with her compatriots Isabelle Blanc and Doriane Vidal ( halfpipe ), she dominated the snowboard scene from the mid-1990s. She was one of the few top athletes who only competed in FIS races from the start and did not drive for the competing ISF . Ruby also did not take part in the races of the Ticket to Ride World Snowboard Tour organized from 2002 onwards . Before the 2006 Olympic Games , she announced her retirement at the end of the season and resigned from competitive sports in March 2006. Three years later, she died in a fall into a crevasse.

The beginnings from 1994

At her first start at the World Cup in Zell am See , Karine Ruby won the parallel slalom and a week later the giant slalom in Pitztal . In the course of the season she competed in 18 World Cup races - all in alpine disciplines , won seven, finished three times second, once third and was always in the top ten with the exception of three races. With that she won the discipline world cup in giant slalom, came third in slalom and fourth in parallel disciplines . An overall ranking was only introduced in the following season, otherwise Ruby would have received the overall World Cup for 1994/1995 .

Dominance 1996 to 1998

The first edition of the overall World Cup in the following season saw Ruby as the winner, as did the two discipline World Cups in giant slalom and slalom. Ruby was even more dominant in the 1996/1997 season , when she also won the discipline ranking in snowboard cross . In half of the thirty races in which she competed in 1995/96, she was on the top podium of the podium, only seven times she was not on the podium. The fact that one of the victories in giant slalom was her first world championship title at the first World Championships in 1996 in Lienz , Austria, was not surprising given her dominance. It was rather surprising that in the parallel slalom of the World Championships, of all places, she achieved the second-worst result of the season in ninth place.

She stayed on the road to success with ten wins, 23 podiums and only two places besides the top ten at 31 races in the 1996/1997 season. Again, the World Championships were part of the 1997 World Cup and Karine Ruby was the most successful athlete in Innichen , not least because she had competed in snowboard cross as well as alpine disciplines since the beginning of the season and was world champion at the premiere of the competition. Silver medals were the reward for second places in parallel and giant slalom.

Ruby was just as dominant in the 1998 Olympic year . She was listed as a starter in 21 competitions, including a first and a third place in giant and parallel slalom at the French national championships. Her victory at the premiere of the snowboard as an Olympic discipline ahead of Heidi Renoth and Brigitte Köck in the giant slalom was as little unexpected as the superior victory in the overall World Cup. Their season record in the World Cup with eleven wins, two second, one third, another three top ten places and an eleventh place as the worst result was once again outstanding. With the victory in the seasonal slalom and giant slalom, she was able to win all the overall ratings for the third time in a row.

Competition in 1999 and 2000

The winters of 1999 and 2000 were far less successful for Karine Ruby than the previous winters. In the Austrians Manuela Riegler and Ursula Fingerlos , the Italians Margherita Parini and Marion Posch , and her compatriot Isabelle Blanc , she had strong competitors and Riegler secured the overall World Cup twice, Ruby was second in 1999 ahead of Fingerlos, in 2000 she also had to be fourth in Blanc and let Parini go first. The discipline World Cups also saw others ahead, in 2000 Ruby only came second in the giant slalom and two third places in the two parallel World Cups, in 1999 she was second in all disciplines. The 1999 World Championships in Berchtesgaden were Ruby's only world championships without a medal. In the parallel slalom Marion Posch, Isabelle Blanc and Sandra Farmand were on the podium, in the parallel giant slalom Isabelle Blanc Rosey Fletcher and Aasa Windahl took the podium places and Ruby remained fourth. Despite these relative failures, Ruby was still a regular on the podium in both winters, thirteen times in 1999 and nine times in 2000 with three wins each. In March 2000, a French championship in parallel slalom was added.

Victory streak from 2001 to 2003

The World Cup winters 2001 , 2002 and 2003 were again dominated by Karine Ruby. Like 1996-1998 she won the overall World Cup three times in a row and was also successful in some of the discipline rankings. Giant slalom and boardercross 2001, parallel slalom 2002 and boardercross 2003 she decided in her favor. The 2001 World Championships in Madonna di Campiglio were a triumph for the Frenchwoman. With four starts within six days she became three times world champion, only in the parallel giant slalom the Swiss Ursula Bruhin could break Ruby's winning streak. Twelve World Cup victories in cross and alpine disciplines and the renewed win of the state championship in parallel giant slalom stood for Ruby in 2001. The following season was just as successful with seven wins, another nine podium places and four top ten ranks at 24 starts, including World Cup races as well as two FIS races and the highlight of the 2002 season for Ruby, the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City . Like four years before, she competed in the parallel giant slalom . This time, however, she had to admit defeat to her team-mate Isabelle Blanc, third was Lidia Trettel from Italy. Despite few starts, Ruby remained the most successful snowboarder in 2003. In only fifteen races of the season she was placed thirteen times among the top five. Even if there were only three victories in the World Cup, she added another world title in snowboard cross to her collection of titles at the 2003 World Championships. in the parallel slalom, she had to admit defeat to her long-standing opponent Isabelle Blanc and took silver from Sara Fischer . The fact that she also won boardercross at the French championships was a further sign of the shift in her focus on the disciplines. For the first time she had won only cross in one season. Her last win in any of the alpine snowboard competitions was in December 2001 at Mont Sainte-Anne in Québec .

2004 until the end of his career in 2006

At the beginning of the 2004 season Ruby only started in snowboard cross. Three wins from nine races and four times in the top ten were enough to win the Boardercross World Cup in 2004. She also took part in the Winter X Games and won the silver medal in boardercross. She ended the season despite a torn cruciate ligament in her left knee and had an operation in June. In the following season , she only contested two races. The first of these was the competition at the 2005 World Championships in Whistler Mountain . This race brought victory to a young competitor, Lindsey Jacobellis , who had already got into the limelight at the end of the preseason. Ruby was able to celebrate the last great success of her career with second place, the Canadian Maëlle Ricker came third .

In the 2005/2006 season she started in five World Cup races with a ninth, two fourth and two second places. The last of these was her last World Cup race ever in Kronplatz . She could thus qualify for her third Olympic Games. She had already announced her retirement from active sport at the end of the season. At the 2006 Winter Olympics , however, she was denied a third Olympic medal in snowboard cross. When the Swiss Tanja Frieden won after Lindsey Jacobellis' mishap, she was sixteenth. Ruby closed the season and with it her career with a victory at the FIS race in her home country Chamonix .

Personal

Karine Ruby was the daughter of a teacher couple. She started snowboarding when she was eleven. Her older brother Jerome is also a snowboarder. After the end of her career, she had to undergo knee surgery again because of a torn cruciate ligament and then began training as a mountain guide . When she graduated, she was one of only a few state-certified alpinists in France. Ruby, who lives in Chamonix, died on May 29, 2009 when she fell into a crevasse on Mont Blanc .

successes

Olympic games

Nagano 1998 : Gold in giant slalom
Salt Lake City 2002 : Silver in the parallel giant slalom

World championships

Lienz 1996 : Gold in the giant slalom
Innichen 1997 : Gold in boardercross, silver in parallel slalom, silver in giant slalom
Madonna di Campiglio 2001 : Gold in parallel slalom, giant slalom and boardercross
Kreischberg 2003 : Gold in boardercross, silver in parallel slalom
Whistler Mountain 2005 : Silver in boardercross

World cup

Overall World Cup: 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
Giant Slalom World Cup: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001
Slalom World Cup: 1996, 1997, 1998
Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup: 2002
Boardercross World Cup: 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004
67 World Cup victories, 122 podium places

Web links

Karine Ruby in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
Karine Ruby in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Portrait at olympic.org
Overview of successes at EXPN

Individual evidence

↑ Show contribution helps Swiss woman to get gold . NZ Netzeitung GmbH. February 17, 2006. Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2009.

↑ Karine Ruby: French Olympian ( English ) ABC of Snowboarding. 2008. Archived from the original on February 7, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 31, 2009. @1@ 2

^ Décès de Karine Ruby ( French ) L'Équipe . May 29, 2009. Archived from the original on May 30, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 29, 2009. @1@ 2

↑ Champion snowboarder falls to death ( English ) ESPN . May 29, 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2009.

↑ Snowboard: Olympic champion dies in a climbing accident . sport.t-online.de. Retrieved June 1, 2009.

personal data
SURNAME	Ruby, Karine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Moumoune (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French snowboarder
DATE OF BIRTH	4th January 1978
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bonneville , Haute-Savoie department , France
DATE OF DEATH	May 29, 2009
Place of death	on Mont Blanc

[1] Show contribution helps Swiss woman to get gold . NZ Netzeitung GmbH. February 17, 2006. Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2009.