Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9401300176
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
Maier, who was expected to contend for a medal at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, next month, died about 2 1/2 hours after being taken to a hospital by helicopter.
"She had no chance," said Guenter Hofmann, a co-director of the emergency accident hospital in Murnau, 15 miles east of this Bavarian resort.
Maier was practically dead on arrival, he said.
"Her neck was broken, the main artery was ripped, and no surgery was possible," he reported.
The skier was traveling about 60 mph when she lost control of her right ski about two-thirds of the way down the Kandahar course, crashed head-first into a ditch and lost her helmet. Maier tumbled over several times and appeared to have been hit in the head by one of her skis that had snapped free.
She lost consciousness and was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage, said Karl Flock, a German team doctor who was on the scene.
"It is a black day for all of us," said Hubert Ostler, chief of the organizing committee.
Maier, 26, won the super giant slalom at the world championships in 1989 and 1991. She finished fifth in the Super-G and fourth in the giant slalom at the 1992 Winter Olympics at Albertville, France. She was in her 10th World Cup season.
Maier was the first World Cup skier to die as a result of a crash since another Austrian, Gernot Reinstadler, was killed in practice for a downhill in Wengen, Switzerland, in 1991.
Before that, no skier had been killed on the World Cup circuit since 1970 when Frenchman Michel Bozon was killed in Megeve, France.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB