Austrian ski champion Hermann Maier will not be taking part in the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (USA), his doctors said today.
The double Olympic champion and FIS World Cup winner sustained a serious injury to his right leg yesterday in a motor bike accident in Radstadt, Austria.
The 28-year-old was rushed by ambulance to hospital in Salzburg where he underwent emergency surgery, lasting several hours into the early hours of Saturday morning.
Maier was driving his motor bike when he collided with a car, thought to be driven by a 73-year-old German retiree, at a crossing where he failed to brake in time and he was thrown in to a ditch at the roadside.
The Austrian, known as 'the Herminator' for his outstanding skiing record, broke his lower right leg and suffered several lesser injuries to his body.
Austrian Ski Federation president Hans Pum described the accident as "tragic".
Last season Maier equalled one of alpine skiing's most remarkable records when he tied with Ingemar Stenmark's 1979 single-season World Cup record of 13 victories - 10 giant slaloms and three slaloms.
Maier, a former bricklayer from Flachau, won five downhill, three Super-G and five giant slalom events during the season, and could have surpassed Stenmark's record had five of this year's events not been cancelled because of adverse weather conditions.
Maier had just got back from a training camp in Chile and had gone to the Austrian Olympic headquarters at Obertauern near Radtstadt on Friday.
AFP