Suddenly he asks me [Maier adopts the animated voice of the prurient spectator]: 'So how was it with the accident? How is it with the leg? How do you actually ski with a leg like that? Every time it's the same. Even though he professes not to remember anything about the crash, the arduous nature of his comeback lends itself to that kind of obsessive public interest. Befitting somebody who recovered from a terrifying downhill spill at the Nagano Olympics to win gold in both super-G and giant slalom, Maier was back on the exercise bike within five weeks of the accident and talking about making it to the Salt Lake games.
Almost as soon as he was upright, he insisted his friends help him - leg still throbbing with pain - clamber aboard one of his fleet of motorcycles. But what else would one expect from a man whose day job involves navigating ski runs at more than 70mph? I did have fear about leaning back too much into the turns, though, that was a little bit of a problem for me at the start. But I've tried and tested it a lot since and it's getting better and better.
Maier ended up watching last year's Winter Olympics on television while scuba-diving in the Bahamas. Even 12 months ago, when the World Cup circus last pulled into Beaver Creek, he was sitting in a friend's bar in the alpine resort of Obertauern, cradling beers, glancing at the coverage and doubting whether he would ever ski competitively on the circuit again. The right leg was still very painful and, for sure, there were a lot of times when I came very close to not making this comeback.
I started skiing around Christmas last year and, though it was a little painful, it became possible to increase training and improve my shape.
A few weeks later I started my first race in Adelboden but it was Wengen that proved something to me. The second day there I was seventh in the downhill and I knew then it was possible for me to ski again on a good level. His third time out last January Maier won the super-G, his specialist discipline, at Kitzbuhel. Amid the celebrations his agent's phone rang. It was Schwarzenegger on the line. Like every other Austrian around the world the actor had spent the previous 18 months monitoring Maier's rehabilitation, hoping he could come back and defy the odds.
The admiration is mutual. It was very emotional for us because he is a great man and hugely popular in Austria. He's trying to achieve a lot but he knows how to build a team and that is so important in what he is doing. I would guess that's the most important thing. He knows a lot of people and that makes this job easier. He was nobody when he came here to America.
He did his best and worked very, very hard to make it to this level. Sander, who had never been higher than seventh in three previous championships, had felt he could spring a surprise but when he saw the scoreboard his immediate fear was of missing out on a medal in agonising fashion.
Italian skiers have yet to medal after four races in the glamorous resort that is scheduled to co-host the Winter Olympics. French skier Maxence Muzaton caused a commotion with an astonishing high-speed save after losing control and nearly crashing but somehow staying on his skis. He re-emerged with blood across his face. In , many A year-old woman named Mary accepts a ride from a man in the ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado, and is raped and severely beaten with a claw hammer. The attacker, Tom Luther, was traced through his truck and apprehended.
Luther told a psychiatrist thatMary reminded him of his Following the death of Yuri Andropov four days earlier, Konstantin Chernenko takes over as the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, the ruling position in the Soviet Union.
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