Team USA snowboard halfpipe star Maddie Mastro will be returning to the Olympics during the Beijing Winter Games.

While spearfishing off the coast of his native Australia Wednesday, two-time world champion snowboarder and former Winter Olympian, Alex Pullin, drowned and died at the age of 32. 

According to authorities while speaking to reporters, “another diver was out there and located him on the seafloor and raised the attention of nearby surfers who sought lifeguards to bring him in. He didn’t have an oxygen mask. We understand he was freediving and spearfishing out on the reef.”

Pullin won two gold medals at the 2011 and 2013 world championships in the cross event. He was also the flag bearer for Australia during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. 

In a statement Snow Australia, who is the winter sports governing body in Australia, commented on Pullin’s untimely death. “Our deepest condolences are with Alex’s family, as well as his teammates and support staff. Alex was a beloved member of the Snow Australia community and he will be dearly missed.”

SLIDESHOW: 50 GREAT SPORTS FIGURES WHO DIED IN 2019

Snow Australia, among other groups in the country to social media to honor Pullin:

British Olympic snowboarder Ellie Soutter was found dead in the woods near a ski resort in Southeastern France on July 25 in an apparent suicide. She was 18.

Olympic Snowboarder Ellie Soutter Dies Of Suicide At 18

Soutter, a rising Olympian in Great Britain, died on her 18th birthday. Her father Tony told BBC “I have lost my best friend, my total buddy. She was my rock.”

Tony Soutter continued by saying his daughter had long been suffering from mental illness, and that this — coupled with the pressure of excelling in international competitions — likely drove her to end her life.

SLIDESHOW: 30 Best Sports Instagrams! 

“Unfortunately it all came about from missing a flight which then meant she didn’t go training with the [Great Britain] squad,” Tony Soutter said in an interview with BBC South East. “She felt she’d let them down, felt she’d let me down, and just tragically it just takes one silly little thing like that to tip someone over the edge, because there’s a lot of pressure on children.”

According to the U.K.’s Daily Mirror, Ellie’s mother Lorraine Denman paid homage to her daughter during a funeral service held at the Eglise de la Nativité de Marie church in Les Gets, France on Thursday.

“Our private bond meant you and I together could achieve anything. No one here will ever understand how close we were. No matter where the future takes us I will always be there for you,” Denman reportedly said at the service, according to the Mirror. “I love you and adore you Ellie, but you must now rest and worry no more,” Denman continued. “We will look out for each other forever. I make you that promise.”

30 SPORTS FIGURES WHO DIED IN 2018 – TRIBUTE SLIDESHOW

Soutter won a bronze medal in snowboard cross while competing for Team Great Britain at the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Erzurum, Turkey in February 2017. She discussed her experience competing at the festival at the end of the event.