Searchers hunt missing Spanish Olympian in mountain area

MADRID (AP) — A search squad of hundreds is combing a mountainous area outside Madrid 10 days after former alpine ski racer and Olympic medalist Blanca Fernández Ochoa went missing.

Spain’s National Police said Fernández, 56, was last spotted on surveillance video at a shopping center 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.

More than 200 police officers, firefighters and forest rangers aided by tracking dogs, helicopters and hundreds of volunteers are searching the steep landscape of gullies and peaks covered by pine forests.

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

Her elder brother, Francisco Fernández Ochoa, a 1972 gold medalist, has a statue in Cercedilla.