Maier is the ski hero’s hero. Their world has different values to ours: every pitch is at least twice as steep as it looks on television, a 90-degree turn on sheet ice that loads five times your bodyweight onto one leg is all in a day’s work, flying 170ft through the air is normal, as is reaching 100mph on the edge of your balance. Risking your neck to chase speed that eludes you, battling back when your gift has deserted you, ignoring pain and fear are the inner trials of the ski racer. And in his 33 years Maier has endured these more than most.
On the occasion of the last Games in Salt Lake City four years ago, he was diving in the Caribbean, his right leg, shattered in a motorcycle accident in 2001, held together by pins. Against the odds, he returned to the peak of his sport and his first victory on his return came in the Super-G at Kitzbühel in January 2003 was highly emotional.
Since then he has won 12 times, taking his total of World Cup victories to 53 — more than any man other than the great Ingemar Stenmark — but a victory on his last Olympic downhill today will doubtless bring tears to the eyes of the Austrian.
“For sure, it’s a special one,” he said after clocking up the third fastest training time on the course while suffering from flu. “It’s still my goal to win, but my immediate goal is to get healthy. I’m a little bit sick.”
Maier should walk away from Turin with a medal. He has a good chance in next Saturday’s Super-G and the following week’s giant slalom — both disciplines in which he won gold in Nagano in 1998 just days after he cleared a 20ft safety fence in the downhill.
Advertisement
But there will be others looking for a dream ending to their Olympic careers, not least Daron Rahlves, the 32-year-old Californian who was the last man to win on this course in a World Cup race two years ago. “I like this hill,” he said after finishing more than a second faster than the rest of the field in training.
“It’s a really active downhill. I like how it starts off with two challenging jumps. It’s a deceptive course because your speed’s not that fast, but it feels like you’re going fast.”
The American has won three downhills this season and his biggest challenger should be the season’s most consistent racer, Michael Walchhofer, who has won two races and leads in the downhill points.
The 6ft 3in, 15st 10lb Austrian is 5in taller and 40lb heavier than the American. Weight is an advantage in straight-line skiing where the racer spends a lot of time in the tuck position and on some courses Walchhofer has a huge advantage over Rahlves.
The early opinion was that this Olympic course, which hosted the 1997 World Championships, could be too easy to be worthy of the event. The organisers have responded by using every bump the mountain offers to create little tricks that will catch the racer out. Within seconds of the start gate there is an ingenious turn across the slope onto a blind jump where it is essential to get the line millimetre perfect. Three times the racer is forced to ski along a steep side hill where it is difficult to keep the ski running smoothly. There are subtle obstacles, like house-roof ridges where failure to press the ski tip forwards will cost hundredths of a second.
Advertisement
These nuances are difficult to spot at 70mph and will leave most racers searching for the perfect line up to race day despite being allowed three training runs. After two unimpressive runs Walchhofer, 30, decided to change tactics. “I’ve been trying too much to ski the perfect line instead of just letting the skis run,” he said.
The defending Olympic champion Fritz Strobl has had a resurgence in his career with four podium finishes this season, but Strobl is racing with a broken right hand and no men’s downhiller has won two successive gold medals. His teammate, Klaus Kröll, looks strong, and it seems that only the Liechtenstein skier Marco Büchel, or the Frenchman Antoine Dénériaz can get in the way of what otherwise looks like a race between the American and Austrian ski teams.
The greatest intuitive skier on the circuit, Bode Miller, 28, could surprise everyone after a season of modest results by his standards. After becoming only the fifth skier in history to win in all four disciplines, the great all-rounder has this season managed a victory in only the giant slalom. But by yesterday’s training run he looked to have found his form and was the fastest racer on the top of the course.
Having been ensnared in controversy over his remarks on racing drunk, he courted it again on arriving in Turin. After criticising the athletes’ village as “unhealthy” and admitting to being “a stubborn bastard” at a US team press conference, he did a U-turn on his apology last month about the drinking incident saying: “I don’t want to sound arrogant, but none of this bothers me very much. I would be lying if I said I had massive regrets about the things I’ve said.”
With compulsory press conferences for medallists, Miller, who has chances of a medal in five events, may have a lot more wisdom to share with the world over the next two weeks. The US authorities will perhaps secretly be hoping otherwise.