Hermann Maier’s journey from catastrophe to icon: The crash that created the legend of ‘Herminator’

Twenty-seven years ago this week, skiing legend Hermann Maier pulled off a medal-winning comeback that has gone down in Olympics folklore.

Competing at his first Winter Games, Maier claimed two gold medals at Nagano 1998 - but not before the Austrian had miraculously escaped serious injury after a terrifying, high-speed crash.

“Youthful recklessness”: Maier crashes out in Nagano

Maier, then 25, went into the men’s downhill event as a frontrunner for the title. Catastrophe struck, however, when he fell foul of a difficult turn which, according to the Games’ official website, “would catch out many of the other racers” at Hakuba Happoone Winter Resort.

In a 2018 article on Maier’s memorable crash, Sports Illustrated’s Tim Layden described the turn in question as “a sharp and difficult transition”, recalling: “Racers would have to ski very cautiously to make the turn or risk losing control and missing the next gate… or worse.”

While other competitors opted to take the turn at a slow speed, Maier chose to attack at it full pelt. Speaking to Layden, he described his gung-ho tactic as “a combination of little downhill experience, ferocious determination and youthful recklessness.”

When Maier reached the turn, he completely lost control. To gasps from the crowd, he flew through the air, landed on his side, smashed through fencing at the edge of the slope and, finally, came to a stop.

“I thought, get up quickly to calm my family”

“My mouth was full of snow that I had to spit out first,” Maier recalled in his interview with Sports Illustrated. “After I got my breath back, I thought, get up quickly to calm my family back in Flachau that watched the race on TV. Otherwise I would have laid down a bit longer.”

Somehow, Maier had escaped with only bruising to his shoulder and knee.

And when adverse weather brought delays to subsequent skiing events at Hakuba, he found he had enough time to recover for the super-G and giant slalom races. Days after his horrific crash, Maier returned to the slopes to take gold in both.

‘Herminator’ recovers from road crash to medal in ‘06

But Nagano ’98 wasn’t the only Olympic comeback in the career of a skier who earned the nickname the ‘Herminator’, in reference to compatriot Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic big-screen character.

In August 2001, as he was riding his motorcycle, Maier nearly lost a leg when he was hit by a car.

Describing the accident, David Hannigan wrote in the Guardian: “On impact his right leg had almost been severed and, for a time, doctors feared they would have to amputate below the knee.

“After they had picked paint chips from his wound, the surgeons eventually spent seven hours rebuilding the leg with titanium pins. The hope was he would walk again.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to feel properly with my leg,” Maier told Hannigan in 2003. But three years on, he was at the Winter Games in Turin, where he added two more medals to his Olympic collection: a silver in the super-G and a bronze in the giant slalom.

In 2009, Maier retired from skiing, ending a legendary career that had also brought three golds at the World Championships. “It wasn’t an easy decision, and it’s difficult to let go,” he said. “I’m ending a career which as a kid I could hardly imagine ever turning out better.”

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