On 16 February 1998, at Hakuba, Hermann Maier won the Olympic super-G. He had crashed hard in the downhill only three days before. The gold was his first at a Games, and it turned a wreck into a triumph.
Bib eight, and a lead of 0.61 seconds
Maier started eighth on the morning of the race. Switzerland's Didier Cuche already led the field at 1:35.43. The Austrian set off looking more careful than usual, perhaps thinking of his fall.
Yet his movements stayed fluid and quick down the 2.407 km course. He crossed the line in 1:34.82, a full 0.61 seconds clear of Cuche. In a speed event that margin is large, and it settled the contest at once.
Behind him, teammate Hans Knauss matched Cuche's time to the hundredth. The two men shared the silver, both trailing Maier by the same gap.
Three days after flying off the Karamatsu slope
On Friday 13 February, Maier had flown off the downhill course at 120 km/h. He stayed airborne for more than three and a half seconds. He landed on his head and tore through two layers of safety netting.
He reached the Games as the season's dominant man, having won all four World Cup super-G races that winter. The downhill had promised more, yet the crash left the title to France's Jean-Luc Crétier. Three days after his super-G gold, Maier answered again, taking the giant slalom for an Olympic double.
The two Nagano medals opened a long career of 54 World Cup wins and four overall titles. A near-fatal motorcycle crash in 2001 would test him once more, and he returned in 2003 to win at Kitzbühel and later added two medals at Turin 2006. Nagano set the pattern: fall, then rise.
