The Herminator returns

Maier crowns comeback with super-G victory

Hermann Maier got his first win since a motorcycle accident 18 months ago. AP

KITZBUEHEL, Austria (Reuters) -- Former champion Hermann Maier capped one of the most remarkable comebacks in skiing history when he won a World Cup super-G race on Monday.

Maier, who nearly lost a leg in a motorcycle accident 18 months ago and has been back in competition for less than two weeks, led an Austrian sweep of the top five places in the last super-G before the world championships begin next weekend.

"This is one of the best victories of my life, definitely on a par with the Olympics and world championships," said Maier, who three overall World Cup titles, two Olympic golds and two world titles before his accident.

Choking back tears, the burly racer added: "I don't know what to say. I am so surprised. I never thought it could happen so quickly. I am over the moon."

Christoph Gruber was second, 0.11 seconds behind Maier's time of one minute 20.48, and Stephan Eberharter recaptured the overall World Cup lead thanks to his third place with 1:20.63.

"This is one of the best days for the sport of skiing," said the Austrian team's Alpine director Hans Pum. "Firstly Hermann Maier is back and secondly the Austrian team were all so strong."

The 30-year-old Maier, who missed last year's Salt Lake City Olympics because of his injury, will now be the favourite to regain the super-G world title he won in 1999 when the St Moritz championships start on Sunday.

Monday's race, postponed from Friday because of heavy snow, was being used by the Austrian selectors to help them decide the team for St Moritz and the fierce competition among the squad resulted in seven of their men finishing in the top 10.

Olympic bronze medallist Andreas Schifferer was fourth with 1998 Olympic runner-up Hans Knauss fifth.

Maier's team mates said there was no doubt that the former champion was back to the top of the sport.

"You just can't be envious -- he's the big boss again and I think that was probably one of the greatest performances he's ever given," said Knauss, winner of the giant slalom in Adelboden 13 days ago when Maier staged his comeback.

"How the lad does it I just don't know. It must be in the food," said Schifferer, Maier's closest friend on the squad.

Swiss sixth

The top man outside the Austrian team was Swiss Didier Cuche who finished sixth, just ahead of Austrian Olympic downhill champion Fritz Strobl.

Maier has now won 42 races on the World Cup, making him the fourth most successful man in history, but his previous victory came nearly two years ago, in the season's finals at Are, Sweden.

Maier said many people had written him off during his absence.

"I must thank all those who stood by me," he said. "There weren't many of them left at the end."

American Bode Miller, the World Cup leader going into the race, finished joint 13th, 1.69 seconds behind Maier, and slipped back to second in the standings, behind Eberharter.

Maier's incredible win restored some pride to his ski-mad Alpine nation after the Austrians were left empty-handed in the other two races on the Hahnenkamm over the weekend -- the first time since 1995.

An Austrian has now won every super-G raced down the Streifalm course and the formidable Maier, a former bricklayer who was originally turned down by the Austrian team, has claimed three of those five victories.

Maier's sudden and impressive return to competition had already shaken up the fierce battle among the successful Austrian team to qualify for one of the few tickets to the world championships.

Each nation can field four racers per discipline as well as an extra racer if they have the defending world champion.

The double Olympic and world champion has now secured his berth in the super-G team and has a strong chance to make the downhill team after being the third-best Austrian in Saturday's downhill and coming seventh in Wengen the previous weekend.

The men's World Cup makes one more stop before the world championships, moving east across the Austrian Alps to Schladming for a night slalom on Tuesday.

Maier's comeback echoes Lauda feat

KITZBUEHEL, Austria (Reuters) -- Hermann Maier wrote a fairytale of Hollywood proportions at this ski resort on Monday, rekindling memories of another heroic Austrian sportsman.

Like former Formula One triple world champion Niki Lauda, Maier was the best in the world at what he did before a life-threatening accident brought his glittering career to a sudden halt.

Against all the odds and only 13 days after making his comeback to competitive skiing after an absence of almost two years, Maier stormed to victory on one of the toughest World Cup super-G courses on the World Cup.

The 30-year-old Maier's 42nd World Cup victory was a remarkable feat for a racer who almost lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident 18 months ago. Many thought he would never even be able to ski again.

Lauda, considered one of the all-time greats of motor racing, experienced a similar resurrection.

In 1976 the Austrian was read the last rites after a horrific crash at the Nuerburgring left him with severe facial burns, damaged lungs and fractured ribs.

Badly scarred, he was back on the circuit 42 days later to finish fourth in the Italian Grand Prix and the following year secured his second world title for Ferrari.

The usually brash Maier choked back tears of joy in the finish area on the Hahnenkamm mountain as he realised he was the fastest man again in the dangerous sport.

"This is one of the best victories of my life, definitely on a par with the Olympics and world championships," said Maier, who won three overall World Cups, two Olympic golds and two world titles before his accident.

"I'm enjoying skiing much more now, I take it all much more seriously than before the accident, so in a way the accident has definitely helped me," Maier said.

Presidential praise

Austria's head of state, President Thomas Klestil, said Maier had set a great example to all, especially the young.

"Your victory is a victory of your will over body, pain and depression...The whole of Austria is proud of you."

Maier said the most important stage in the difficult months since the accident near his hometown of Flachau was immediately after the crash.

"The doctors made the right decision -- my career could have been over then and there if they'd made the wrong choice," he said of the surgery he underwent following his compound fracture. A flap of skin was removed from his left upper arm and grafted on to his shattered right leg.

"I never thought that I could come back in such a short time," he added.

Maier, who by taking the final giant slalom of the 2000/2001 season at Are, Sweden, equaled Ingemar Stenmark's 1978/79 record of 13 wins in a single season, said he first speculated about a return to competition earlier this month.

The former bricklayer trained with team mates on the Reiteralm near Schladming and posted some of the top times.

"That's when I noticed that it could just work out," he said. "Of course racing is a completely different affair but I thought 'Let's give it a go.'"

Known as a fiercely focused competitor who races full throttle in each race, Maier showed the same determination in his laborious rehabilitation and was rewarded with his third super-G victory here and a place on the team for the world championships in St Moritz starting next Sunday.

Nicknamed "The Herminator" for his blistering runs down the world's most treacherous mountains, Maier became a double world, double Olympic and triple overall World Cup champion in only four winters.

The name stuck when he casually brushed off the snow after cartwheeling through the air to near-disaster and out of the downhill at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Despite bruising his upper body and left shoulder, spraining his right knee and banging his head, Maier returned to the Olympic slopes only a few days later to collect gold in both super-G and giant slalom.

He ended his last season 22 months ago on a high and far ahead of his closest rivals. He captured the downhill, super-G and giant slalom World Cup titles and ended up with nearly double the points of his closest rival, Stephan Eberharter.

"It was a great comeback," Eberharter, who had to settle for third in Monday's super-G said. "It was very surprising for everyone here and congratulations to him."

"I already said in Adelboden that with him everything is possible and he showed it here today," team mate Christoph Gruber said after coming runner-up to Maier.

 

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