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Deadly weekend for extreme sports in the French Alps

AFP
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Deadly weekend for extreme sports in the French Alps
The Haute-Savoie region. Photo: Patrick Nouhailler/Flickr

Five people died in a deadly weekend for extreme sports in the French Alps that claimed the lives of two climbers, a paraglider, a hanglider and a wingsuit jumper.

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On Sunday afternoon, rescuers found a paraglider's body on rocks in the Haute-Savoie region on the Swiss border, security forces said.

The man had plunged to his death from the Buclon mountain, which is 2,072 metres (6,799 feet) high.

Earlier on Sunday, two French climbers - a 34-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman - died further south, after crashing 50 metres (165 feet) down La Meije mountain.

On Saturday, a 32-year-old man also died after diving off the Dent d'Arclusaz mountain in a wingsuit. Another wingsuit specialist had died in exactly the same spot three years earlier.

Earlier in the day, a hang-gliding instructor, 49, died after plunging out of his two-seater near Lake Annecy, a popular haunt for lovers of the sport.

His shocked student, who was not harmed in the incident, managed to land and alert the emergency services. Rescuers were unable to resuscitate the victim, however.

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