Death threat fails to faze champion skier Maze

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (AFP) –

Tina Maze of Slovenia competes in the women’s Super Combined downhill race during the FIS Alpine World Cup in February 24, 2012, in the French ski resort of Meribel. Maze said Sunday she was not concerned despite receiving an emailed death threat before her race at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Overall World Cup winner Tina Maze of Slovenia said Sunday she was not concerned despite receiving an emailed death threat before her race at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Maze, 29, finished fourth in Sunday’s Super-G having won Saturday’s downhill race here to become the first skier to collect more than 2000 World Cup points in a season, breaking Austria legend Hermann Maier’s 13-year-old record.

But Maze, the Super-G world champion, was assigned police protection on Saturday after race organisers received death threats against her via email.

“It’s bizarre, I can only laugh about it,” said Maze after her fourth in Sunday’s race left her with 2074 points for the season.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, it was just a normal day at the office.

“I have a clean conscience, I haven’t done anything bad, some people are just jealous.

“I haven’t seen anything myself, the threat came through the organisers, but I have never felt as safe as I did today.

“If whoever is responsible wanted to distract me or put me off, they didn’t succeed.

“But it’s not easy when you have the feeling that something can happen.”

Despite the threat, Maze has said she will stay in Garmisch for the next three days before travelling onto the next World Cup meet in Ofterschwang, south-west Germany, on Saturday.

With plained-clothed police officers accompanying Maze before and after her race on the Khandahar course, race officials said they were concerned by the threat and were working closely with Bavarian police.

“We regret that this has happened very much. It is very, very serious,” said Peter Fischer, head of the organising committee in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

“We received an anonymous email and contacted the police immediately, who took over handling the matter.

“We don’t know if this was an individual acting alone or a group of people.

“We had to take this very seriously and the main thing thing was keeping Tina safe, so we achieved that goal.

“It’s good that she is strong minded and still felt good being here.

“She has said she will stay here for three days before going onto Ofterschwang for the next race.”

On Saturday, Maze became only the third woman to win a World Cup race in all five skiing disciplines in a single season after her downhill victory, matching Austria’s Petra Kronberger (1990-91) and Croatia’s Janica Kostelic (2005-6).

At last month’s world ski championships in Schladming, Austria, the Slovenian won gold in the Super-G, plus silvers in both the giant slalom and the super combined.