Maier’s Flight Sure Wasn’t in First Class

Hermann Maier had built up far too much speed on the icy course and lost control just a few seconds into the Olympic downhill he was expected to win. As he tumbled through the air, he had one thought:

“Not Lufthansa, but OK,” he recounted with a grin a few hours after the spectacular crash, when his head had stopped pounding but his body still felt like a punching bag.

Maier, the Austrian who has ruled world skiing this season and was expected to walk away from the Olympics with a pocketful of medals, was the first of several skiers to slide off the course on an icy bend Friday.

His wipeout was the most dramatic -- not just because he was the favorite, but also because it was terrifying.

Maier became airborne and flew sideways, momentarily parallel to the snow on which he was supposed to be skiing. He began hurtling through the air, then rolled through two orange plastic safety fences before stopping.

“I was very fast and there was a lot of wind from the back side, and I went up in the air and was looking at the sky,” he said. “I looked down at the snow and waited for the crash.”

When his body finally came to a stop, he appeared stunned at first. But then he walked away, waving to fans. He stopped several times while climbing slowly back up the hill, glancing at the spot where his dreams for an Olympic downhill medal ended.

“I had a big chance to win the gold medal in downhill. And I went off the course, so that is not so good,” he deadpanned before heading off for a session of acupuncture.

Maier was left with a bruised left shoulder, bruises on his chest and a sprained right knee. Team doctor Toni Wicker said Maier avoided more serious injury because of his fitness and because he got into a tuck position as he tumbled.

“It was horrifying. It was a terrible crash,” Wicker said. “He was lucky.”

Maier dropped out of the combined event after the crash, losing out on another medal chance. The downhill portion of the combined event was run Friday a few hours after the downhill race.

But the Herminator, as he is known in Austria, planned to be ready for Saturday’s super-G and drew the eighth starting position. He’s won all four World Cup super-G races this season.

Several other downhillers tumbled off the course at the same spot as Maier, and one -- Luca Cattaneo of Italy -- tore his left Achilles’ tendon in the fall and had to be airlifted off the course.

The gate on that treacherous bend was moved about six feet before the race because organizers felt, in Friday’s gusty winds, that it was unsafe. That meant skiers had to do some improvising as they approached that gate.

And the bad weather of the past week that forced the downhill to be postponed from Sunday to Wednesday to Thursday to Friday meant the downhillers had not had a training run in six days.

But Maier said he saw during a pre-race inspection that the gate had been moved, so he knew what to expect.

As he replayed the crash in his head later, while wearing sandals and white socks at the team hotel, he managed a smile. How do you feel, he was asked?

“Not so good,” he said. “It was a big crash today, I think my first big crash in downhill. And it’s not so good to do that at the Olympic Games.”