On 6 February 1999, Hermann Maier won the downhill at the Alpine World Ski Championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado. The gold completed a speed double, coming days after his super-G title. He had now taken both fast events at a single Worlds.
Birds of Prey answered him in 1:40.60
Maier attacked the Birds of Prey course, a track with a vertical drop of 757 metres and pitches up to 63 percent. He stopped the clock at 1:40.60, in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators.
Norway's Lasse Kjus chased him home at 1:40.91, a margin of 0.31 seconds. Kjetil André Aamodt was third at +0.57, and Austrians Hans Knauss and Stephan Eberharter filled fourth and fifth. The course, designed by Bernhard Russi and built for these championships, suited Maier well.
Two golds in an off year for the Herminator
Four days earlier, Maier and Kjus had shared super-G gold in the first dead-heat tie in Worlds history. The downhill gave Maier the clean pair in the speed disciplines. Kjus, remarkably, placed top two in all five events that week.
The season was a quieter one by Maier's standard. He would finish third in the overall World Cup behind Kjus and Aamodt, with seven wins, which made the two Beaver Creek golds stand apart. The venue kept rewarding him: this was his third win in a run of seven straight starts taken at Birds of Prey.
Years later, Maier still set this title above the rest. "My greatest medal," he called the 1999 Beaver Creek downhill.
He returned that December and swept all three Birds of Prey races in a weekend, on his way to a record points season. The double at Beaver Creek marked the peak years before injury, comeback and a long career would follow.
