On January 29, 1994, the Austrian Super-G world champion Ulrike Maier had a fatal accident while skiing downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Thirty years later, the World Cup is still trying to become safer.
In 1994, Ulrike Maier was in her last season as an active ski racer, she was the only mother in the Ski World Cup and only had one final goal: an Olympic medal. But it shouldn’t come to that anymore.
14 days before the start of the games in Lillehammer, Maier started the race in Garmisch with number 32. She was almost at the finish when her right ski jammed in the FIS lane at a speed of 104.8 km/h. She was jerked upwards and hit her head on a wedge covered with a bale of straw that was supposed to obscure the timing. The then 26-year-old had no chance, she died.
Security measures have been increased
In addition to Maier, a number of athletes died while practicing their alpine ski racing. A Wikipedia article on fatal accidents lists 27 deaths, including seven women, who died in racing or training.
Every accident leads to discussions about safety in ski racing – and also to some improvements. Little by little, the carving skis, which were still relatively new when Maier’s accident occurred, were regulated, fall areas were enlarged, and there were new high-security nets, cut-resistant boards and safeguards. As the latest safety measure, the world association FIS decided on one starting next season Airbag-Duty.
The timepieces that were Maier’s downfall in her accident in 1994, however, disappeared behind protective fences many years ago.
However, there will probably never be absolute safety for ski racers; the French ski racer died in 2017 David Poisson after a fall in training, just a few weeks later the young German rider Max Burkhart at the age of 17 in a lower-class race.
Most recently, no fatal injuries, but serious ones
The World Cup has not experienced any fatal falls in recent years, but in the current season a wave of serious falls and injuries has sparked a new safety debate. In the past few weeks, top drivers like… Alexis PinturaultAleksander Aamodt Kilde, Petra Vlohva and Mikaela Shiffrin partly seriously injured – and partly criticized for this by the tight racing calendar of the world association FIS.
In the women’s speed races there were a total of 35 failures in three races of the recent World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo alone. Lara Gut-Behrami, winner of the Super-G on Sunday, took a clear stance on this in an interview with “ORF”. “I don’t think it’s the slope. It’s such a mess right now. You push the sport to such an extent that there is no room for mistakes“, she criticized.
Too much stress in the World Cup?
Gut-Behrami further explains that the strain on athletes due to the busy racing calendar and obligations to sponsors, media, etc. is very high: “We have 45 races on the calendar. There are more than before, of course. What is crucial, however, is the time we have to recover, and this is becoming increasingly shorter.“
In addition to the safety concept on the track and the athletes’ equipment, the Swiss makes the stress on the drivers an important safety issue. Thirty years after the death of Ulrike Maier, new challenges and a lot of work still await organizers, those responsible and athletes in the World Cup in order to make the sport as safe as possible.