A former world speed skating champion is said to have been shot dead by her fiancé in her condominium in Colombia.
Luz Mery Tristán, 60, was found dead in her home on Saturday after Cali Metropolitan Police responded to reports of a domestic dispute.
Police arrested her boyfriend, Andrés Ricci, 58, who was holding the gun he used to shoot Tristán, a mother of five.
Authorities said Ricci was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the arrest. He suffered from a cardiovascular condition and was rushed to a local medical facility, where he remains hospitalized.
Ricci admitted to killing Tristán during a virtual hearing on Sunday.
Andrés Ricci (left) appeared in a virtual hearing from his hospital bed on Sunday and told a Cali judge he killed his fiancée, Luz Mery Tristán (right)
Luz Mery Tristán is credited with taking the sport of skating in Colombia to another level
He faces one charge of aggravated femicide and three other charges, including trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm.
Police searched Tristán’s home and seized six of Ricci’s guns. It is not known whether he lived with Tristán, whom he would marry in October.
Tristán rose to fame in 1990 when she became the first Colombian to win a gold medal in the 5,000 meters competition at the World Inline Skating Championships in Bello, Colombia.
She also won gold in the 5,000 meters and bronze in the relay at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Indiana. Before that, she was part of a team that competed in the 1986 Tour de France.
Known as the ‘golden wheel pioneer’, Tristán is credited with the success future skaters would experience by winning 19 international titles.
Luz Mery Tristán, who became the first Colombian to win a gold medal at the 1990 World Inline Skating Championships, was reportedly shot dead by her fiancé, Andrés Ricci, at her home in Cali, Colombia
Andrés Ricci was arrested Saturday at the home of his fiancé, Luz Mery Tristán, after he allegedly shot her dead following an argument. The couple had planned a wedding in October
Luz Mery Tristán became Colombia’s first gold medalist at the World Inline Skating Championships, held in Bello, Colombia in 1990
Luz Mery Tristán with her five children from her previous relationship with Joaquín Valencia, a drug lord serving 40 years in a US prison
In 2006, she opened the Luz Mery Tristán sports center, where future skating champions Daniela Mendoza, Rommy Muñoz, Sebastián Garcés and Johana Viveros were trained.
Elías del Valle called Tristán “an icon of Colombian skating.”
“She opened the doors of world skating and told Colombian skaters that it was possible to win gold medals, that it was possible to reach the world’s elite and that Colombia had talent,” he said.
A family member told El País newspaper that they hope Tristán’s legacy is not overlooked by the incident.
“I want her to be remembered for all she did for the sport in Colombia. I ask you to honor her,” she said.
Colombian drug lord Joaquín Valencia (center), a former high-ranking Cali cartel leader, was married to Luz Mery Tristán. The couple had five children. Valencia is currently serving a 40-year sentence in a US prison
Joaquín Valencia, a former Cali cartel leader, with his Luz Mery Tristán
Tristán was formerly married to Colombian drug lord Joaquín Valencia, with whom she had five children.
Valencia was extradited to Florida from his native Colombia in 2004.
Valencia was convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering in 2007 by a federal court for Florida’s Middle District.
He was sentenced to 40 years and had to surrender $ 110 million.
Witnesses identified Valencia as the successor to the Orejuela brothers, who founded the Cali cartel, and said he shipped more than 100 tons of cocaine between the early 1990s and January 2003, when he was arrested in Bogotá.