By Canadian Press

Searchers hunt missing Spanish Olympian in mountain area

Sep 3, 2019 | 8:47 AM

MADRID — Hundreds of searchers, helped by helicopters and drones, combed a mountainous area outside Madrid Tuesday, 10 days after the last known sighting of former alpine ski racer and Olympic medallist Blanca Fernández Ochoa.

Spain’s National Police said Fernández, 56, has been missing since she was last spotted on surveillance video at a shopping centre on Aug. 24.

Her car was later found in Cercedilla, a mountainous village and resort popular with hikers where Fernández’s family has deep roots.

According to Spanish media, the relatives only alerted authorities about her disappearance on Aug. 29 because it wasn’t unusual for the former alpine ski champion to go on multiple-day hikes in the area, even without her phone.

A police spokesman for the Madrid province who wasn’t authorized to be named in media reports said that authorities are looking into “various investigation threads.” He declined to elaborate.

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On Tuesday, more than 200 police officers on foot and on horse, firefighters, forest rangers and hundreds of volunteers searched the steep pine-forested landscape of gullies and peaks. They were aided by more than 100 tracking dogs, helicopters and at least seven drones, police said.

Fernández won a bronze in the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, becoming Spain’s first female Winter Olympic medallist .

Her elder brother, Francisco Fernández Ochoa, a 1972 gold medallist , has a statue in his honour in Cercedilla.

Aritz Parra, The Associated Press