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US skier Kyle Smaine killed in avalanche in Japan

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Kyle Smaine, a U.S. professional skier who was the halfpipe gold medalist in the 2015 world championships, died Sunday in an avalanche in Japan, according to his wife and a fellow skier who was also caught in the snow.
Smaine, 31, was in Nagano over the weekend for a marketing trip for Ikon Pass and Nagano Tourism when the avalanche took place on Mount Hakuba Norikura, according to a blog post by the skiing news site Mountain Gazette.
Pro skier and Mountain Gazette correspondent Adam Ü was also at the resort along with Mountain Gazette photographer Grant Gunderson, who was the photographer on the marketing trip, according to the site.
Ü told the Mountain Gazette that the three of them were going out to ski during the last day of their trip on Sunday. “We had no camera gear with us. We were going out for fun,” he told the site.
Gunderson went back to the resort when Ü and Smaine went for a second lap and were joined by a group of Austrian skiers.

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