He died in an avalanche the snowboard world champion Estelle Balet

Estelle Balet Swiss world champion extreme snowboarding, Freeride World Tour, died Tuesday as a result of an avalanche in the Swiss Alps during the filming of a video, police said the Canton of Valais.

Estelle Balet, 21, fell at high speed down the slope on your table, when there was a snow avalanche that ended his life. The young athlete had proclaimed world champion in his specialty for the second time in early April in Verbier (Switzerland).

The champion was carrying with him a DVA (avalanche victim detector) and a helmet.

"Despite the resuscitation attempt, died in the accident," police said.

Estelle Balet grew up in the Canton of Valais, and participated in the Freeride World Tour (FWT) since she was a teenager.

- "A ray of sunshine" -

"It was a real ray of sunshine, was always attentive to others. He lived his life with passion, everything was very fast, too fast," summed up his father, Eric Balet, father of two children.

"I feel a great sadness, a bitter feeling of solidarity and especially to their relatives," said Nicolas Hale-Woods, the founder of FWT, asked by AFP. "This reminds us that even well prepared, the practice of Freeride mountain has its share of risk," he added.

"It's a tragic accident," estimated the French Aurelien Ducroz, multiple world champion ski freeride and several times winner of the Verbier Xtreme. "Always try to minimize the risks. But zero risk does not exist," he told AFP.

"In the world of the mountain, death is part unfortunately the risks," said Aurelien Ducroz, who recalls that there are "a lot less tragic accidents in freeride in other disciplines. The mountain is a dangerous environment, but it is a tragic accident ".

Before Estelle Balet, another Swiss, Neil Valiton, he died in 2007 when he was 18 during a competition in Tignes. More recently, in 2014, the Canadian Jean-Philippe Auclair, star of discipline and founder of the brand of skis Armada, was killed at age 37 by an avalanche in Chile during a competition.

Freeride, characterized conducted outside marked tracks in pristine mountains and powder snow, more conducive to avalanches, offers like most extreme sports the opportunity to see spectacular images with millions of downloads Internet.