The women's course at the 2025 World Ski Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm is named after Ulrike Maier. It is the place where the Austrian defended her 1991 World Championship title in the super-G and took silver in the giant slalom. Ulrike Maier, who had a fatal accident in the downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1994.
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- The women's course at the 2025 World Ski Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm is named after Ulrike Maier.
- Maier won gold in the super-G and silver in the giant slalom at the 1991 World Championships.
- Three years later, Maier crashed in the downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and suffered fatal injuries.
- A great deal was subsequently invested in safety in the sport of skiing and Maier's legacy still resonates today.
What happened on January 29, 1994 at the World Cup downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen is etched in the mind of every ski fan. On that gloomy Saturday in January 31 years ago, Ulrike "Ulli" Maier entered the race with bib number 32. At 1.58 pm, she pushes out of the starting gate without any great ambitions - after all, the downhill is not her favorite discipline.
A minute and a half later, disaster strikes. Maier, who wanted to retire at the end of the season to have more time for her four-year-old daughter Melanie, jams her right ski just before the finish and it gets stuck in the snow. She was traveling at around 105 km/h when she crashed with full force onto the hard surface and skidded into a wedge of snow covered with bales of straw.
The force of the impact and the rotation of her body displaced her cervical spine by four centimetres, severed her spinal cord and tore both arteries in her neck. Ulli Maier had no chance of survival - she died instantly. Two and a half hours after the accident, she was pronounced brain dead at the accident clinic in Murnau.
The successes of Ulrike Maier
Ulrike Maier, the namesake of the women's course on the Zwölferkogel, was one of the best female skiers in the late 1980s and early 90s. At the 1989 World Championships in Vail, she raced to gold in the super-G, even though she had never previously stood at the top of the podium in the World Cup. She revealed a few days later that she was three months pregnant when she won.
Four years later, Maier writes a skiing fairytale at the World Championships in Saalbach, around 45 minutes' drive from her home. After an injury break, she returned to her best form in time to win silver in the giant slalom and gold in the super-G - in front of her young daughter Melanie, her partner Hubert Schweighofer and her parents. The pictures of the beaming world champion with her daughter in her arms went around the world. That was on January 29, 1991, exactly three years to the day before her fatal fall.
Aftermath and legacy
To this day, Maier is the only woman to have lost her life on a World Cup course. In the aftermath of the tragic accident, a great deal was invested in safety in skiing. Safety fences were installed everywhere, blue markings in the snow replaced the pine brushwood and helmets were made safer. Maier's legacy still resonates today.
