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Todtnau, Germany
February 6, 2000
Maier Talks About His New Outlook
The word "phenomenon" has lost its value in the world of sports, as has "super-champion" — that's also true in World Cup ski racing. Over a dozen top skiers from all horizons, athletes such as Franz Klammer, Ingemar Stenmark, Pirmin Zurbriggen, Marc Girardelli, Alberto Tomba, Lasse Kjus and Kjetil Aamodt, deserve this classification. They all achieved unique accomplishments during their careers and strongly contributed to the legend of the World Cup.
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 Hermann Maier |
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In the past three seasons, the Austrian won 27 World Cup events in four disciplines, four gold medals and four World Cup titles – including the Overall standings in 1998. He has the potential to win four more Crystal Globes in the coming weeks and to establish a new record of points scored during a single season — he'll surely attain over 2000 if he keeps accumulating wins and top-3 finishes.
Since the start of the present winter, the 27-year-old Maier reinforced, race after race, his legend as skiing's "Herminator," crushing his rivals and finishing most of his races among the top-3. He's done this 16 times in total, winning nine races so far. With 10 more races this season – four super G, three downhill and three giant slalom – Maier can aim to set a new record of victories within a season.
Until now, Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark was the best performer, with 13 World Cup victories in two events in the 20 races he entered during the 1979 season — to be compared with Jean Claude Killy's 12 successes in three events and 16 starts in 1967. The super G, Maier's strongest discipline, was only invented in 1981 by Serge Lang, the founder of the World Cup.
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| "It would be fun to be the first to set the record of 2000 points to mark the new millenium, but I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. I have found another way to be successful now...." — Hermann Maier |
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Winning his third giant slalom of the season on Saturday, February 5, at Todtnau, Hermann Maier became the most successful Austrian man on the World Cup tour, passing the mark that Klammer took eleven years to set, from December 1973 to January 1984, while racing mostly downhills.
Maier, who plans on competing until the 2002 Winter Olympics, agrees that he is enjoying his best season ever — it's just too bad that there are no Olympic medals to win this season. After his latest victory in Todtnau, Maier spoke out about himself and his season.
Q: Hermann, do you feel this is your best season and if so, why?
HM: I think so! Not only because of the great statistics but I also feel more pleasure when I compete. I have won more races than I expected, and I'm extremely consistent in all my specialties. I made great progress in downhill and my worst result in giant slalom was 2nd in Alta Badia and Saalbach, only a few hundredths behind the winners. I have not lost a super G this winter and I feel in great shape.
If I remain healthy, I can win more races, but I don't think so much about setting new records. I'm already proud to have become the leading Austrian World Cup racer, ahead of Franz Klammer who was my great idol in my younger years. It would be fun to be the first to set the record of 2000 points to mark the new millenium, but I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. I have found another way to be successful now. Anyway, my first goal is to remain in good health until the end of the season.
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Maier |
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HM: Last summer, I sat down with my trainers to check my past seasons and to see what could be done to keep me motivated and in good shape. After having won so much in the last years, I had to find a new motivation, a new momentum. When I was a child, all I wanted was to enter the Austrian team and to compete on the World Cup tour. I had to fight hard to reach this, and I felt I had something to prove at the beginning. I wanted badly to win each race.
Within a rather short time, I had reached much more than I ever dreamed of, but at a high price. I often took great risks. It also cost me a lot energy to move all the time at my limits and sometimes beyond them. I lost races because I wanted too much to win them in beating my rivals. At the beginning of last season, for instance, I tried to win all the time by one or two seconds, and I missed many good opportunities. At the end of the season, I was mentally exhausted and I lost the Overall World Cup title despite my numerous victories. Since I won two gold medals at Vail, it was not too tragic, but I had to change my attitude to become more efficient.
I aim to compete for two more seasons and it was necessary to organize my career to remain at the top level until Salt Lake City. It was decided to change my physical preparation to make it more appealing. I trained more on my explosive strength. I had gained enough raw power in the past years while working as a bricklayer.
My attitude on skis is also different now. I have learned during the past summer to put less pressure on myself and on the edges of my skis when I'm racing, to be keep myself more under control. Tignes was an important step for me because I won that first race without taking as many risks as in the past. It was a strong boost for my confidence and a turning point for me. Here in Todtnau, I didn't think too much about the victory before the second run. I was quite relaxed, in fact, and I mostly tried to enjoy my life as a ski racer. That's why I was so happy to win again.
Q: Toni Giger, your head coach, used the word "graceful" to describe your style earlier this season. You're also getting better at accepting your defeats. In Wengen, you even made a positive comment on Josef Strobl, who had just beat you in the downhill. So are you no longer the implacable Herminator, who only aims to terminate the courses and his rivals?
HM: Well, it's funny to have become an "elegant" skier now. But my drive is still the same; I try very hard to win the races I enter. It's the best way to be really focused and motivated, but I can also better control my power now. I understand that I can't win all the races. In Wengen, I had an excellent run, but I was not quite as aggressive in the final part as Strobl, who took great risks in the last turns to beat me. He deserved the victory for this — I thought that my run would be good enough for another victory, but I was wrong. I could have been tougher in some parts but I decided not to. It's okay — one victory more or less doesn't make the difference for me now.
I have already won a lot and I still have more to fight for in the coming years. Ski racing, especially downhill, is a dangerous activity and there are many accidents. It would be really too bad to lose everything because of a crash — like what happened to Peter Rzehak in the upper part of the Lauberhorn course in Wengen. But on some occasions, I'm still The Herminator. For instance, in Val d'Isère, I had a bad spill while training in GS. It was really brutal, and I was lucky to survive it with only a few bruises and some back pain. I was also skiing very, very aggressively in the downhills at Chamonix and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where I beat Kristian Ghedina. He was really impressive in the training runs and I had no other choice to get close to him. Once in a while it's good to move again at the edges — this is what makes ski racing such an exciting sport.
— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com Correspondent