SESTRIERE, Italy – Sure enough, Bode's “wasted.” Even when he's stone-cold sober.
“Wasted,” to use the synonym Bode Miller employed in his infamous admission to having skied hung over or drunk, is going to be the perfect word of choice when we recall the 2006 Winter Olympics as it pertained one Signor Miller. Simply, in sum, he has:
Wasted people's time.
Wasted people's money.
Wasted people's interest.
Wasted people's hopes.
Wasted, more importantly, his own incomparable talent, natural ability and just about the greatest opportunity an American winter athlete has had since Eric Heiden more than a quarter-century ago.
None of this may matter to Miller, and he seems to take a coy kind of pride in acting as if it doesn't, although I suspect that his apparent lack of interest matters to the rest of the country that helped send him to Italy and make him a rich man.
If the Olympics truly don't matter to Miller, then he's truly troubled. By the time you read this, given the time differential, Miller may very well have won his first gold medal in the last race of his third Winter Olympics. He could do it, just like that, if he worked up some of the old Bode. The right kind of Miller Time.
It would be his first medal, period, of the Winter Olympics in which he was given a chance of placing top three in all five of his events. Come to think of it, what a perfect Bode thing to do, leaving Turin '06 and folks back home with a victory to serve as a nice sneer at everybody who ripped on him for his desultory performances in the previous four races.
In order, they are a fifth in the downhill, a DQ from the combined, a DNF in the Super-G and sixth in the giant slalom. Miller has actually shown more speed and turning ability when heading for the nearest escape to his custom RV, away from the media Huns who'd only stand there and listen to his unbelievable bilge about how well he skied.
See, Bode made a big mistake, years ago. He did let people see precisely what an incredible skier he is, or was. Took your breath away, man, whether he was furiously crashing gates or skiing halfway down the run on one ski.
Bode on the ball was Jordan in mid-air. Bonds on a hanging curve. Pele in the open. Klammer and Killy and Stenmark and Maier on their best days.
All had an air about them. All wanted to keep their distance, understandably, when people most wanted to get close. But all the others cared.
Miller has by no means been the only U.S. problem child in Turin '06. Speed skating had the controversial Shani Davis, who caught holy heck for not participating in the relay, for not being a team guy. Davis makes Miller look like Captain America. Davis also won a couple medals, by the way, one gold.
Miller, at this writing, is medal-less and couldn't care less.
“He's an island,” U.S. coach Phil McNichol told a former national-team skier who's now writing for ESPN.com. “It's clear that Bode wasn't too serious about the Olympics. He said it, he said it, he said it, over and over again.
“I thought he was just making noise because he's such a competitor and such a strong-willed individual that he would come and he would compete hard. Not that he hasn't, but the fact that he hasn't been able to ski to the podium is a real indication that he's, one, either not ready or, two, doesn't want to. It's not just bad luck.”
Perhaps it's just coincidence that Miller skis so much better when his uniform is adorned with the name of a pasta company, not that of his country, one which really could've used a bit of a morale boost over the past couple weeks. Forgetting that, you got the feeling that the entire U.S. Ski Team was looking to the experienced Miller to set the tone for them.
Which, in retrospect, is exactly what he did.
Miller may get what he wants out of the Olympics, and that is, to no longer be a part of a U.S. ski program that's depended far too heavily on him and put up far too long with his tired iconoclastic act. He's said for a couple years that he'd like to start a rival tour to the FIS.
Let him. Cut him loose. Today. Bum ankle and all.
Miller can fund himself, no doubt, from the wealth he compiled while developed and subsidized by the U.S. program. Conversely, of course, that program's coffers filled nicely with corporate sponsorships who bought into Bode.
Whatever Miller's personal demons and habits – and there were more sightings of him in the Sestriere night than snowflakes – the bottom line is that he bombed out. No pun intended. If anything, Miller did his sport a disservice, opening up such a can of worms that one reporter came to Italy to ask the same question to nearly every skier who comes close enough to her microphone: “Have you ever skied drunk?”
America doesn't care about the hours Miller keeps. America would love a guy who can party all night and win, provided he does both.
What America really can't stand, though, is indifference and underachievement. That, and a goofy story about how he hurt himself playing basketball, is all anybody got out of the world's ex-greatest skier.
This was his time. It's already passed.
What a waste.
Chris Jenkins: (619) 293-1267; chris.jenkins@uniontrib.com
