Hermann Maier

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Olympic medalist
Hermann Maier
Medal record
Men's Alpine skiing
Gold	1998 Nagano	Giant slalom
Gold	1998 Nagano	Super-G
Silver	2006 Turin	Super-G
Bronze	2006 Turin	Giant slalom
World Championships
Gold	1999 Vail	Downhill
Gold	1999 Vail	Super-G
Gold	2005 Bormio	Giant slalom
Silver	2001 St. Anton	Downhill
Silver	2003 St. Moritz	Super-G
Bronze	2001 St. Anton	Super-G

Hermann Maier (born December 7, 1972, Altenmarkt) is an Austrian skier who has won four overall World Cup titles ( 1998, 2000, 2001, 2004), two Olympic gold medals (both in 1998), three World Championship titles ( 1999: 2, 2005: 1) and 53 races in the World Cup. He ranks among the likes of Jean-Claude Killy, Ingemar Stenmark, Toni Sailer, Alberto Tomba, Kjetil André Aamodt and Franz Klammer as one of the best exponents of the sport.

Maier did not initially enjoy much success in skiing. As a 15-year old at the Schladming ski academy, he was sent home after being told he wouldn't make it because of his slight build caused by growth impairments. He returned home to his father's ski school in Flachau, which is still Maier's hometown. He took up work as a bricklayer in the summer and a ski instructor in the winter.

Participating in local races, Maier became a multiple regional champion in Salzburg and Tyrol, but still was not able to gain a spot in the strong Austrian World Cup skiing team. Putting that behind him, his outstanding talent was recognized for the first time by Austrian coaches in 1996, when he was timed with the 12th fastest time in a World Cup giant slalom in Flachau, although only starting as a forerunner and not participating in the actual competition. This would become the starting point of his international career. In 1997 he won his first World Cup event - a super-G race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. He quickly established himself as an explosive and dynamic skier, well known for his strength, his willingness to take risks and the endless effort he put into his training sessions.

Since then he has dominated the sport, winning the gold medal in the giant-slalom and super-G at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano only a few days after a dramatic crash in the downhill race, which put him on the cover of the American sports magazine Sports Illustrated and made him a well known sportsman around the globe. In the same year he won the super-G World Cup and the overall World Cup. He went on to the win the overall World Cup in 2000 and 2001.

Maier at "Day of Sports" Festival Vienna 2006.

His career seemed over after a near-fatal motorbike accident in August 2001, colliding with a car on his way home from a summer practice session. Doctors were close to amputating his leg, but instead Maier underwent massive reconstructive surgery. Many thought his career was over, and he had to sit out the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 seasons and missed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

However, Maier returned to the World Cup in January 2003 in Adelboden, Switzerland. He shocked the skiing world with an amazing super-G victory in the skiing-mecca of Kitzbühel, Austria only two weeks later. 2003-2004, in his first full season back, he won the super-G World Cup and the overall competition for the fourth time in his career, a feat widely seen as one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. In 2004 Hermann Maier received the Laureus World Sports Award for the "Comeback of the Year".

Reflecting his apparently indestructible nature, he is sometimes jocularly known as "The Herminator". After his Olympic gold medals in Nagano he also appeared on Jay Leno's Tonight Show on NBC - together with Austrian-born actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is known worldwide as " The Terminator".

In 2004, Maier wrote an autobiography with his friend and former publicity agent, Knut Okresek. The German language book, Hermann Maier: Das Rennen Meines Lebens, dealt mainly with his stunning recovery from the 2001 motorcycle accident. In 2005, VeloPress, a Boulder, Colorado based publisher affiliated with Ski Racing magazine, acquired the worldwide English language rights to the book, which was published in time for the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, as Hermann Maier: The Race of My Life.

In October 2005, winning the giant slalom in Sölden, he reached 51 victories in the World Cup, which makes him the fourth-best alpine-skier of all time behind Ingemar Stenmark, Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Vreni Schneider.

World Cup victories

Overall

Individual victories

Downhill Date Location 29 December 1997 Bormio 16 January 1998 Wengen 29 December 1998 Bormio 27 November 1999 Beaver Creek 8 January 2000 Chamonix 29 January 2000 Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2 December 2000 Beaver Creek 9 December 2000 Val d'Isère 20 January 2001 Kitzbühel 2 March 2001 Kvitfjell 8 March 2001 Åre 6 December 2003 Beaver Creek 14 February 2004 St. Anton am Arlberg 5 March 2005 Kvitfjell 28 January 2006 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Giant slalom Date Location 25 November 1997 Park City 6 January 1998 Saalbach-Hinterglemm 13 January 1998 Adelboden 25 October 1998 Sölden 12 January 1999 Adelboden 31 October 1999 Tignes 24 November 1999 Beaver Creek 5 February 2000 Todtnau 29 October 2000 Sölden 10 December 2000 Val d'Isère 9 January 2001 Adelboden 15 February 2001 Shigakogen 10 March 2001 Åre 23 October 2005 Sölden

Super-G Date Location 23 February 1997 Garmisch-Partenkirchen 6 December 1997 Beaver Creek 10 January 1998 Schladming 11 January 1998 Schladming 1 February 1998 Garmisch-Partenkirchen 13 December 1998 Val d'Isère 21 December 1998 Innsbruck 9 January 1999 Schladming 7 March 1999 Kvitfjell 28 November 1999 Vail 5 December 1999 Lake Louise 21 January 2000 Kitzbühel 16 March 2000 Bormio 26 November 2000 Lake Louise 19 January 2001 Kitzbühel 4 March 2001 Kvitfjell 27 January 2003 Kitzbühel 30 November 2003 Lake Louise 1 February 2004 Garmisch-Partenkirchen 11 March 2004 Sestrières 24 January 2005 Kitzbühel 6 March 2005 Kvitfjell 20 January 2006 Kitzbühel Combined Date Location 18 January 1998 Wengen/ Veysonnaz

Besides skiing

Hermann also won an all-around sports competition, the 2001 edition of the American Superstars competition.