Hermann “The Herminator” Maier, who trained as a bricklayer, started his career late, at the age of 23, but was the most successful male Austrian skier ever, winning 54 World Cup races with 96 podium placements. He was the most successful Super-G racer ever, winning 24 World Cup races in this discipline. Only Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark has won more races in his career. Maier not only won the overall World Cup four times – 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2004 – but also 10 discipline World Cups, four Olympic medals (gold 1998 in Super-G and Giant Slalom, 2006 silver Super-G and bronze in Giant Slalom), and also won three World Championships – in 1999 in downhill and Super-G, and in 2005 in giant slalom. He also won three other medals at the World Championships. He was elected Austrian Sportsman of the Year four consecutive times (1998-2001).
Maier made two remarkable comebacks during his career. The first was after the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano when he had what appeared to be a near-fatal fall in the downhill, only to walk away from it. A few days later, he won the first of his two Olympic gold medals. In 2001 he had a severe motorcycle crash, with an injury to his right lower leg that some thought would necessitate an amputation. But Maier recovered, fought himself back to world’s top level and won his fourth overall World Cup title in 2004. Only four months before the Olympics 2010 in Vancouver he gave up after a knee operation in summer 2009. During a press conference in Vienna, he retired in October 2009 after 13 years on the alpine ski circuit, with tears in his eyes.
Austria