Skiing: Maier back in training after injury

The "Herminator" is back. Hermann Maier has just completed three days of training in the Italian Alps without suffering any pain, and even has his aim on a comeback some time this season.

The Austrian whose all-out style so electrified the circuit has not skied competitively since he nearly lost his right leg in a motorcycling accident in August 2001. He also injured his leg last August in Chile while skiing for the first time since the accident.

Maier completed the training runs at the Vipiteno resort in north-eastern Italy, not far from the Austrian border. Andi Evers, a personal coach assigned to him by the Austrian federation, said the only certainty regarding the 30-year-old was that "he didn't have any pain" during the three-day session.

The twice Olympic gold medallist and three-times overall World Cup champion has not ruled out returning this season, perhaps at next month's World Championships in St Moritz, Switzerland. Maier won gold at the Nagano Olympic Games in 1998 in giant slalom and Super-G, and gold in the Super-G and downhill at the World Championships in Vail, Colorado, in 1999.