Maier on fire
Austrian captures second World Cup title in five days
Posted: Sunday February 07, 1999 10:20 PM
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Hermann Maier made a storming start, skiing at full tilt and twice banging the gates with his shoulders. AP |
BEAVER CREEK, Colorado (Reuters) -- Hermann Maier set aside memories of downhill disaster and swept to his second gold of the Alpine world championships on Saturday.
The men's downhill title also more than made up for the Austrian double Olympic champion's nightmare crash in the 1998 Nagano downhill when he cartwheeled off the course. He came back then to win the Super G and giant slalom.
Muscular Maier, who could easily make it a golden triple next week, was congratulated at the finish by Austrian-born Hollywood strongman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous for the "Terminator" movies.
"Hermann, you are the real Herminator," he said.
Maier shared the Super G gold on Tuesday with Norwegian Lasse Kjus but he was in a class of his own on Saturday, banging through the gates on the "Birds of Prey" piste and forcing his way down in the falling snow.
Kjus took second place, with Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt picking up the bronze. Maier's time was one minute 40.60 seconds. Kjus clocked 1:40.91 and Aamodt 1:41.17.
Maier followed in the tracks of Patrick Ortlieb, winner in 1996, and Harti Weirather in 1982 as the only Austrian downhill world champions of the last 20 years.
"This was one of my best races ever," said Maier. "I definitely did my best jumps here."
He had started two places after Aamodt, the early leader, and his time left Aamodt shaking his head in dismay.
"I was lucky that I did not fall when I went into the gates. This is a wonderful medal," said Maier.
"It was an amazing run. I only lifted my head up once. It was like a wind tunnel," the Austrian said.
Maier said he knew the Norwegians would be really hard to beat after Kjus tied with him in the Super G.
"Hermann has made a perfect run, he deserved to win," conceded Kjus, who has been suffering for several days with a sore throat.
"There was nothing more I could have done. I lost most of my time on the Super G course (the lower part of the downhill), but I'm very happy with the silver."
Kjus went down right after Maier and he said he had felt so bad before the start that he could not remember part of the course and had to ask Aamodt to describe it to him.
The bronze was the 12th medal of Aamodt's career in championships and Olympics, putting him just one behind the all-time record of Luxembourg's Marc Girardelli which he could equal in the men's combined next week.
There was disappointment for Austrian Hans Knauss, who just missed out on the bronze by just 0.02 of a second having missed out on the gold by 0.01 on Tuesday.
American Daron Rahlves had a bad crash, losing his balance off a jump with his left ski almost level with his head. He controlled that somehow but could not regain his feet properly and careered off further down. He eventually stood up with assistance.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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