Mexican weightlifting gold winner dead at 36

MEXICO CITY (AFP) –

Mexico’s Soraya Jimenez, pictured during the women’s -58kg weightlifting event at the Sydney Olympics, on September 18, 2000. Jimenez, the first Mexican woman to win gold in the Olympic Games, died on March 28, 2013, at the age of 36 of a heart attack, according to the Mexican Olympic Committee.

Weightlifter Soraya Jimenez, who became the first Mexican woman to win an Olympic gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Games, died of a heart attack.

The Mexican Olympic Committee said the 36-year-old Jimenez was at home when she died.

“Soraya was the first Mexican athlete to win a gold medal during the debut of female weightlifting at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000,” the committee said in a statement, released on Thursday.

Several Mexican officials expressed their condolences on Twitter, including President Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera.

“I regret the death of Mexican athlete and Olympic medalist Soraya Jimenez. My condolences to her family,” Pena Nieto wrote.