The 2000 World Cup downhill champion knows what bad luck really means. She didn't win a single race during her 1999/ 2000 season and badly broke her right knee in crashing in the finish area of her last race at Bormio. Fortunately - if it's possible to say so - her 10th place that day added to her five second's in previous competitions was enough for her to remain out of reach from Austria's Renate Goetschl, 3rd in that event. Goetschl, the 2000 Overall Champion, finished only five points behind her in the standings. Later on, it's in a German hospital that Regina found out about her victory after undergoing a long surgery! Regina belongs to the group of very talented skiers whose star raised at the 1992 World Junior Championships at Maribor, in Slovenia. That year, she won gold in GS and Super-G while other future champions as Spela Pretnar or Christel Saioni won silver in the technical events. She was only 19 in January 1993 as she while celebrated her first success on the World Cup tour, at Cortina d'Ampezzo before finishing 2nd in the downhill World Cup standings behind her dominating teammate Katja Seizinger. Her 10th place is the Overall standings too was very encouraging.

The talented Bavarian was hoping for much more to come in the coming winters, but she collected much less than excepted - beside injuries and difficult moments.

Haeusl was plagued by a series of injuries and health problems which began a year later, only a week before the Lillehammer Olympics. She crashed in the downhill at Sierre Nevada and injured her left knee. Many more were to come.

Training for the 1995/96 season, the German fell again and chipped a bone in her left knee and lost the first two months of the new season.

In 1997, she damaged cartilage in the same knee while training in North America. She refused to have surgery until the next spring and despite the chronic pain produced her best results in four years. She notched several top-10 results in downhill and Super-G and finished 11th in downhill at the 1997 World's at Sestriere.

During the 1997/98 season, Haeusl was hampered by a sprained left ankle yet she still reached a medal-close 4th place in the Olympic Super-G won by Picabo Street. That winter, she was also 2nd at Cortina d'Ampezzo, for sure her preferred ski resort in the Alps. These good results boosted her moral and pushed her to fight for more in 1999 and 2000.

In fact, she collected several top-5 places in 1999 including a 5th at the World Championships at Vail and she moved up to her encouraging 13th place in the final Overall World Cup standings. Another injury prevented her to start the speed season in Canada as her colleagues, yet her 2nd place at St Moritz showed that she didn't totally lose her form in November. This very articulated young women excels on demanding courses and tough conditions.

That excellent skier was again close to triumph at Altenmarkt, in Austria, where she was 2nd in the downhill and 3rd in the Super-G. In February, she was three consecutive time 2nd again at Santa Caterina, Are and Innsbruck. She gracefully faced her destiny despite her frustration - to be so often on the podium was not so bad after all after so many disappointing years she said. Now Regina first aims to recover in time her best form and all her momentum and win a medal in the coming big races at St Anton 2001 and Snowbasin 2002.

A daughter of a house painter who used to be a mountain guide, the Bavarian likes to work with her hands during her off-season. In the past years, she worked a lot at her new house which she helped to built in 1997.

She is also a custom officer - and claims she is a better shooter that her teammate Martina Ertl.