PARIS, Nov 1: The freckled, tanned, and smiling face of France’s top woman skier Regine Cavagnoud graced the front pages of French newspapers on Thursday as the country mourned the loss of its homegrown champion.

“Death of a champion,” read the headline in the daily newspaper Le Figaro above a picture of Cavagnoud dressed in her skiwear as if she had just come off the piste.

“The death of a Queen,” said sports daily L’Equipe, dedicating its entire front page to a photograph of a more pensive, concentrated Cavagnoud.

Cavagnoud, the reigning world champion in the speed discipline of super-G, died aged 31 as a result of severe brain injuries sustained two days earlier in a training accident in Austria.

French radio reported that her body would be flown to the small Alpine town of La Clusaz, where Cavagnoud grew up and first donned skis at the aged of three.

An official at the town hall said the funeral of La Clusaz’s most celebrated daughter would be held in the early afternoon of Monday, Nov 5. Further details had not yet been decided, nor was it known who from the world of sport would attend, the official said.

The flag at the town hall is flying at half mast and the small ski-station’s tourist office has taken down a huge photo of a beaming Cavagnoud proudly holding up her gold medal.

La Clusaz’s priest spoke of the cruel and brutal way in which Cavagnoud was taken from them in an address to the faithful who packed the village’s church on All Saints Day.

The trainer Cavagnoud hit in Monday’s accident, Markus Anwander is still in intensive care in an Innsbruck hospital but is expected to survive, doctors said.

Anwander had a neck operation on Wednesday and further surgery is planned. He suffered broken bones and internal injuries.

France’s most prolific female winner on the circuit since Carole Merle, Cavagnoud won eight World Cup races during her 10 years in competitive skiing and took part in three Olympics.

She was her country’s top contender for a medal at the Salt Lake City Olympics in February.

“Regine Cavagnoud left life at 31 years of age in the same way that she had lived it, at high speed, taken away at the height of her art,” Le Figaro said.

The many ups and downs of her career, hampered by countless health problems, were recounted in great detail by French newspapers, which praised her determination and courage.

“Regine had to fight repeatedly and consistently against bad luck and injuries. She even learnt to live with them,” L’Equipe said.

It took five years before Cavagnoud won her first World Cup laurels by taking a downhill in Cortina in February 1999. But hard luck struck again as she crashed in training for the world championships in Vail two years ago.

Her gold medal came at the end of an injury-free season, when she was feted throughout France but particularly in La Clusaz, west of Chamonix in eastern France.

“She was the emblem, the pride of La Clusaz and she will be missed enormously by everyone,” Seb Michaux, one of France’s best off-piste and extreme skiers and also a La Clusaz protege, was quoted as saying by La Liberation newspaper.—Reuters