"Blanca Fernández Ochoa raised Spanish sport to a new level. This department is dismayed", says José Guirao

"We have spent all week longing for the outcome not to be the one that we now mourn today", stated the acting minister, who remarked that this "is dreadful news for the world of sport".

"Blanca Fernández Ochoa was a great Olympian, a woman who took Spanish sport to a new level. This ministerial department is dismayed. All my support goes out to her fans, family and friends", stated José Guirao.

Blanca Fernández Ochoa was the first Spanish woman to win a medal at the Winter Olympics in Albertville in 1992, and she also won four World Cup events.

The Government of Spain awarded her the Gold Medal for the Order of Sporting Merit in 1994 and the National Queen Sofia Sports Prize for the best Spanish sportswoman in 1983 and in 1998.

Non official translation