Maier: I’Ll Be Back Body Control During Crash Keeps ‘Herminator’ In Running For His Best Event

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 Thursday.

His wipeout was the most dramatic.

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.

Maier was left with a bruised left shoulder, bruises on his chest and a sprained right knee.

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 a few hours after the downhill race.

The “Herminator,” as he is known in Austria, planned to be ready for the super-G that was set for Friday, although the race was postponed because of rain and lightning until at least today. Maier has won all four World Cup super-G races this season.

Italian skier Luca Cattaneo, his left Achilles’ tendon torn following a dramatic spill in the Olympic downhill, has flown home to undergo surgery.

Giovanni Caldaroni, who heads the medical staff of Italy’s Olympic team, said the 25-year-old downhiller will need about three months to recover from the injury.

Samaranch favors marijuana testing

International Olympic Committee chief Juan Antonio Samaranch said that, despite an arbitration panel’s decision this week reversing the first positive test involving marijuana at the games, the drug should remain on the banned list.

“From my point of view, the International Olympic Committee must be very tough to ban these social drugs,” Samaranch said.

He said there was a difference between testing for performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids and substances such as marijuana that are illegal but don’t give an athlete an unfair edge.

“It is not doping, which deals with the performance of athletes,” Samaranch said. “But I think it’s an ethical point, a point of principal, and we have a duty to fight against it. Many people can say, ‘Well, marijuana is a very light drug.’ I am not an expert, but many people say marijuana is a beginning to hard drugs.”

Now that’s Olympic spirit

A 56-year-old janitor who took part in the Olympic torch relay in the 1988 Calgary Games has kept the flame burning for 10 years - as the pilot light for his water heater.

“I wanted then to keep it forever and I still do,” said Frank Reaume, 56, of Calgary. “It’ll always be near and dear to my heart.”

Reaume ran the Olympic torch on Feb. 12, 1988. Before he passed it on to the next runner, he lit candles held by his daughter, Teresa, and his son, Paul.

“I blew out the pilot light on the hot water heater and relit it with the torch flame, and it’s been burning ever since,” Reaume said.