He claims, with no one arguing, that his greatest victory was returning from his accident to win a super-G at Kitzbuehel in 2003. The comeback from near death - twice - has only exalted Maier’s legend. Turns out, Maier lived to win another World Cup overall title. He could still move his toes, though, giving hope that he would walk again. Maier’s leg was left dangling, held together only by fibers. He is not the favorite in the downhill, but it seems a miracle that he’s even in the running, given where he has been.Īs described in his autobiography, Maier might have lost his leg on that warm Austrian night in 2001, when a 73-year-old German pensioner made an illegal left turn on Katschberg highway near Salzburg, clipping Maier’s motorcycle and hurling the ski star into a ditch. Maier has been fighting a cold all week that he hoped would subside by race time. “If you had the perfect career, you would win the Olympics, the World Cup, the world championships. “No, for sure no,” Maier said in English. Now 33, with this being his last shot to claim the one trophy in Alpine he hasn’t won, you can bet Bavaria that Maier will be itching in the start gate for today’s Olympic downhill at Sestriere Borgata.įriday night, seated on a couch at the Tabata Discotheque in Sestriere, Maier said he had nothing to prove and insisted the results of today’s race could not define him. Maier was in the Bahamas when countryman Fritz Strobl took the gold at Snowbasin, outside Salt Lake City. Maier was primed to take it in 2002 at Salt Lake at a time when he was crushing opponents on the World Cup circuit.Ī motorcycle crash in August 2001, though, nearly cost him his right leg and forced him out of the Olympics, yet provided backdrop for his next dramatic comeback. A few days later he added the giant slalom gold to his medals collection. Two days later, when the super-G was skied, Maier’s body had healed sufficiently enough to win. Maier might not have been good enough to win the super-G that day, but he caught a break when bad weather forced a postponement. Lotz said Maier replied, “I am not so good, but I will be good enough.” “Does it hurt?” Lotz said the coach said. That morning, according to Lotz, a British ski team coach was astonished to see Maier at the start gate. Less than 24 hours after his horrific spill, Maier was entered in the next day’s super-G.
“I said, ‘Hermann, please make deep knee bends of your right knee,’ ” Lotz continued. Lotz said he examined Maier’s bruised body and banged-up knee and came to a different conclusion. “I came to the hotel room the day he crashed, and the other doctors said he had to go home and have surgery,” Lotz said. Andreas Lotz, the Austrian team doctor who treated Maier after his Nagano spill, sat in Austria House this week, a glass of white wine in hand, and told the story.