Ulrike Maier

Ulrike Maier (22 October 1967 – 29 January 1994) was a World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria, a two-time World Champion in super-G. She competed at the 1988 Winter Olympics and the 1992 Winter Olympics.

Born in Rauris, Salzburg, where her father ran a ski school, Maier won the super-G gold medal at the World Championships in both 1989 and 1991. She also took home the giant slalom silver medal in the 1991 event. Her first of five World Cup wins came in November 1992 and she attained 21 podiums and 59 top ten finishes in her World Cup career.

Accident

Two weeks prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics, the women's World Cup was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in late January. The downhill on the classic Kandahar course at Garmisch Classic was held on Saturday, 29 January, following an overnight snowfall. In a narrow part of the lower course less than twenty seconds from the finish, Maier's right ski caught an inside edge at 105 km/h (65 mph), possibly from a patch of soft snow, and caused a violent crash which broke her neck.

She died of her injuries shortly after being evacuated to the hospital in nearby Murnau. At the age of 26, she had considered retirement at the end of the 1994 season, due to a dip in form that resulted in disappointing performances at the 1992 Olympic Games in France and the 1993 World Championships in Japan. However, she had bounced back by winning two giant slaloms during the 1994 season and claiming podium finishes in the two Super Gs of Cortina. Following these results, she was reconsidering her decision in the days before the fateful downhill run, planning to continue until the 1995 World Championships in Spain.