Profile: Hermann Maier

Maier's rehabilitation is complete

By Anna Thompson BBC Sport Online Winter Sports editor

By rights Hermann Maier should not even have been an all-conquering skier.

As a youngster he suffered from a back problem and was rather small for his age.

He had a natural ski ability which saw him invited to attend the famed Austrian ski academy in Schladming at the age of 15.

However, within a year he was sent home from the school because of his slight build and told he would never make it as a professional skier.

Maier's achievements

Olympic golds in giant slalom and super-G at Nagano

Three overall World Championship titles in '98, '00 and '01

2001 season: equalled Ingemar Stenmark's record of 13 wins

Jan 2003: recovers from horrific injury to win World Cup super-G

A bitterly disappointed Maier returned to a normal school and when he left he became a bricklayer in his native Austria and a ski instructor at his father's ski school in Flachau.

But he never gave up the dream of being a professional skier and studied videos about the perfect technique and trained on his own.

In October 1994, at the age 21, Maier decided to enter the national ski championships.

He blitzed the rest of the field - many of whom who had been in specialist ski schools since the age of six.

Austrian ski chiefs could not believe what they were seeing and Maier's love affair with winning began.

He came to international prominence and steamrollered his way on to the elite Austrian team by posting a top time as a 1996 World Cup forerunner in Flachau.

Hermann Maier in action in 2001

He missed the 1997 World Ski Championships because of a broken wrist.

But as soon as he returned to competition he won his first World Cup event, a super-G race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

It was only the second super-G Maier had ever entered.

The 1997-98 season was amazing for him.

Maier won two gold medals at the Nagano Olympics - after a high speed crash in the downhill.

Audiences around the world saw Maier catapulted through the air and crash into the safety barriers at more than 80mph.

He escaped with cuts and bruises and just days later went on to win the giant slalom and super-G titles.

He capped a brilliant season by clinching the overall World Cup title.

In 1999, he won the downhill world title and tied with Norway's Lasse Kjus for the super-G crown but missed out on the overall crown.

I know his attitude to sport and he really has proved in the past what great feats he is actually capable of

Austrian team director Hans Pum

In 2000 he reclaimed the overall title and won it for the third time this year.

His ferocious talent as an all-round skier is evident from the fact that he became a double world, double Olympic and triple overall World Cup champion in only four winters.

But he is not a team player.

His team-mates consider him a loner brimming with self-confidence who, to their frequent irritation, is not averse to self-aggrandisement.

Maier was undeniably favourite to win Olympic golds at Salt Lake City in February 2002.

But an accident while riding his motorcycle in August 2001 left him with a career-threatening injury.

Maier suffered a serious compound fracture of his right leg and doctors were even contemplating amputating it.

But instead it was pinned and Maier underwent intensive physiotherapy in a bid to return to skiing.

He conceded the Olympics were too early but finally returned to the slopes in July 2002.

He made a competitive reappearance in Adelboden in Switzerland in January 2003.

And he won his first race since March 2001 in a super-G in Kitzbuhel on 27 January to complete his rehabiliation.