{"id":517734,"date":"2026-06-25T12:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/517734\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:51:10","slug":"kenzo-kies-french-footballer-dies-aged-21-after-drowning-during-heatwave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/517734\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenzo Kies: French footballer dies, aged 21, after drowning during heatwave"},"content":{"rendered":"

French footballer Kenzo Kies has died from drowning in the Rhone river.<\/p>\n

Kies, 21, who played for Guingamp in Ligue 2, was in a critical condition when he was pulled from the water by firefighters on Monday, and later died in hospital.<\/p>\n

Kies and three friends entered the river near Lyon to escape the blistering heat in France, with temperatures reaching 40C in parts of the country this week. <\/p>\n

Three people were pulled to safety by emergency services but Kies was the last to be found.<\/p>\n

Forty people have drowned in heatwave-related deaths in France<\/a> since last Thursday, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Kies was part of the youth set-ups at Lyon and Saint-Etienne before joining Guingamp last year, where he was playing in the reserve team.<\/p>\n

Guingamp paid tribute to Kies on X, writing: “Guingamp has had the sorrow of learning of the death of Kenzo Kies, a young player with the club.” <\/p>\n

The club said they would offer their “full support” to Kies’ family during this “painful ordeal”. <\/p>\n

A Saint-Etienne statement read: “The Green Generation is in mourning. A resident of the Robert-Herbin Sports Centre for seven years, a talented player and discreet young man appreciated by all, Kenzo Kies has lost his life in dramatic circumstances.<\/p>\n

“Saint-Etienne extends its most sincere condolences to his loved ones as well as to those – teammates and coaches alike – who shared a piece of his journey. Kenzo, in the corridors of L’Etrat, no one will ever forget you.”<\/p>\n

Saint-Etienne told BBC Sport that plans are underway to pay tribute to Kies at the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium at the start of next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French footballer Kenzo Kies has died from drowning in the Rhone river. Kies, 21, who played for Guingamp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-517734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}