Hermann Maier | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Thinking About Machine-Man (cont.)

Today's Question
What is the best way to get water if I'm lost in the desert? answer

What's the most reliable tool for starting fires? answer

Today's Question
What one equipment change can I make in my home to reduce my water usage most? answer

Why do you drive a grease-powered car, and should I do it too? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside magazine, November 1998

Page:

Thinking About Machine-Man (cont.)

HIS FELLOW WORLD CUP SKIERS tend to speak of Maier with an awe that's colored by a chilly note of incomprehension, as if they can't quite decide whether Maier is entirely human.

"He is for sure not one of us," says Austrian teammate Hans Knauss.

"He is on another planet," says Andreas Schifferer, another Austrian teammate.

Says German downhill gold medalist Katja Seizinger, "He is beyond this world."

Even Maier's longtime girlfriend, Petra Wechselberger, describes him in similar terms: "He is a machine-man. He is some kind of extraterrestrial."

This "otherworldly" verdict appears to be virtually unanimous. His peers characterize Maier as a lone wolf, asocial to the core. "A lot of people are intimidated by Maier," says U.S. gold medalist Tommy Moe. "He's so intense and unfriendly, he's right on the edge of being rude. I've never once seen him say hello to the other skiers, not even a wie gehts. The guy's a robot, man."

Maier's various nicknames over the course of his short, spectacular career reflect this sense of his being a creature fundamentally apart — not just in terms of skill and manners, but perhaps even metabolically. "The Beast," they called him at first. Then "the Monster" and "the Alien." And, of course, the ultimate alias, the one that finally stuck during the Olympics and will probably never go away: "the Hermanator."

More Athletes

Kelly Slater

Dan Osman

Terje Haakonsen

Bobby Julich & Kevin Livingston

Alberto Tomba

Hermann Maier

Guilherme Tamega

Pipin Ferreras Rodriguez

Jonny Moseley

Lance Armstrong

[more]

The name fits on so many levels that it's almost uncanny. Like Maier, the cyborg villain played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 movie The Terminator possesses an action-figure physique, a calm and relentless efficiency, and an unnerving indestructibility. ("It doesn't feel pity or fear, and it absolutely will not stop — ever.") Schwarzenegger, of course, was born and raised in Austria. Like Maier, he is a power lifter, motorcycle enthusiast, and serious skier. It made perfect sense when, after the crash, Schwarzenegger publicly adopted Maier as a kind of poster robot of the slopes. "He is the Huh-mahn-nay-tuh," Schwarzenegger told the CBS television audience during an interview shortly after the crash. "And he'll ... be ... bahhk. He will tuh-mahn-nate all competition." Schwarzenegger proved to be right on this score, thus making the nickname seem prophetic.

After the Olympics, Schwarzenegger and Maier appeared together on The Tonight Show — the Hermanator and the Terminator together at last, sealing the connection forever, though that day was the first and only time the two have met.

"You guys look like Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live," Jay Leno joked.

"Yes," Schwarzenegger agreed. "We've come to pump ... you ... up."

Maier, looking understandably confused by the reference, smiled a bewildered smile. Changing the subject, the Hermanator observed, to Schwarzenegger's chagrin, that he was only 12 years old when The Terminator was released.

These days, it's difficult to tell whether Maier is cultivating the Hermanator persona when he insists on remaining frustratingly un-emotive, or if he's simply being himself. One day, for example, I asked Maier what he loves about skiing. What, for him, is its essential allure?

"Da speed," he replied. "I like to go fast."

OK, but ... anything else?

"Ja, I like to win. If I lose, I'm not very happy."

In the final seconds of the countdown, Maier turns his head to the sky and hyperventilates, his face wreathed in the fog of his own exhalations. The electronic clock dweeps down to zero, and it's time. Maier snarls, and his cold blue eyes bulge fiendishly behind his Carrera goggles. He launches himself in one great heave, skates to pick up speed, and lowers into a full tuck. He's dropping like a stone now, gathering momentum, 30 miles per hour, 40, 50, 60, his skis chattering over the ice. Fifteen seconds into the run, he's still crouched low, his poles clutched tight under his arms, head thrust forward. This is the point where he should be tapping the brakes in anticipation of the first turn, but he doesn't — he's doing 65, 70, 75, and still picking up speed.

To understand Maier's singularity, you have to understand the dreadnought that is the Austrian Ski Federation.

In Nagano, the Austrian men won three of five gold medals and eight of 15 possible medals. Even more amazing, last year they did something that no other national team has done in the 30-year history of the World Cup: Austria took every alpine title there is to take, winning the downhill (Andreas Schifferer), Super G (Maier), giant slalom (Maier), slalom (Thomas Sykora), and the overall title (Maier). In the final World Cup standings, six of the top ten racers were Austrian.

Because his nation is expecting nothing less than an encore performance this year, Maier's time is considered a public asset, a precious commodity that must be husbanded and protected. When I told people in Salzburg that I was going up to the mountains to interview Hermann Maier, they were invariably puzzled. "How can this be?" they would ask. "He is in training."

Sure enough, when I meet Maier he is in training, spending 60 hours a week working out in the village of Obertauern, a ski resort lofted in a high alpine meadow an hour's drive from Salzburg. The gym where Maier trains, the Olympiastützpunkt, with its halogen-bright hallways, "therapy studios," and gurgling whirlpool lagoons, is like some technopolitan lair out of a Bond film. While being escorted to meet Maier, I catch glimpses of German heavyweight boxer Axel Schultz sparring and several members of the Japanese national ski team running on treadmills, their chests hooked up to winking banks of heart monitors.

The Hermanator is sitting in the café sipping an apple cider, surrounded by an entourage that includes his trainer, his agent, and the director of tourism for Salzburg. There's a fresh bead of blood on his left ear where the Olympiastützpunkt technicians have just extracted their sample for the daily lab analysis. Maier's dirty-blond hair is sweat-drenched (he's just finished a two-hour ride on a stationary bike), and a long trail of yellow fuzz connects his sideburns to the patchy goatee on his chin.

How are you? I ask.

"The training is going very, very well," he says in the clipped but sturdy English that he learned years ago while teaching Scandinavian skiers on the slopes above Flachau, his hometown. "I think I've got just the right formula. At the present time, I'm working mostly on the thighs." The members of his retinue nod their heads in approval.

The anxiety of success is thick in the air. Measured by the high standards of its past glories, Austrian skiing has only recently emerged from a long slump. As consistently good as the Austrian ski teams have been through the years, until Maier's breakthrough last season the country hadn't produced a true international superstar since Franz Klammer (who won his downhill gold in the 1976 Olympics), and it hadn't had an overall World Cup champion since Karl "The Great" Schranz in 1970.

Page:

• Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

• Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

• Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.

TODAY'S NEWS UPDATE!
The Gear Junkie Scoop: Sugoi Majik ...
By Stephen Regenold Sugoi calls its new Majik shell "an elite waterproof jacket that offers ...