SESTRIERE, Italy For weeks now Nike has advised us to "Join Bode." Join him
where? At the bar? That's one place you might find Bode Miller after the
Turin Games, unless he's in his motor home, finding new ways to duck all
that pressure he put on himself.
Miller is the biggest disappointment in the Winter Olympics, not because of
the way he skied the mountain, but the way he acted at the bottom of it. The
fact that he didn't win a medal at these Games, going 0 for 5 in the Alpine
events, is beside the point. It's not the winning, it's the trying. The
point is that he acted like he didn't try, and didn't care. Failing is
forgivable. Getting fatter on beer while you're here is not.
If there has been a weaker performance by an American athlete on the
international stage than that of Miller, I'm hard-pressed to think of one.
To hear Miller tell it, he spent more time in Sestriere's nightclubs than he
did in actual competition, which amounted to less than eight minutes.
Miller's final Olympic event, the slalom, lasted all of 16 seconds. He
bulled out of the start house, did a couple of quick scrimshaw turns, and
promptly straddled a gate.
Fair enough -- Miller has struggled in the slalom this season, finishing
just two of eight races, and it was a tough course. Nine of the top 29
skiers in the competition did not finish. It was Miller's behavior afterward
that sealed his reputation as the goat of the Games. He thrust his hands in
the air, stuck out his tongue, and waggled in mock celebration. Then he
skied off the course, avoiding the cameras and throngs of people at the
bottom of the hill. When Associated Press reporter Jim Litke found him
later, he declared, "Man, I rocked."
Then he delivered a disquisition on his Olympic experience. "It's been an
awesome two weeks," Miller said. "I got to party and socialize at an Olympic
level."
Let's review his awesome two weeks. Miller arrived in Turin sullen and
defensive, and blew his chance in the downhill when he lost time on the
bottom of course, probably as a result of his lack of fitness. He blew
another medal in the combined when he led after the downhill portion, but
straddled a gate in the slalom. Next, he blew up a gate in the Super-G, and
then insulted his rivals afterward by saying he wasn't one of those guys
"who skies 70, 80 percent and gets on the podium."
Miller has worked awfully hard to reach this point; the relationship he has
built with the public is the one he himself has constructed over many
months. He was impossibly over-hyped coming into the Winter Games between
Nike's ad campaign, his autobiography, and those nipple-baring magazine
covers, all of which he cooperated with and cashed in on. Miller took the
world's biggest ego bath -- until he realized it was going to be difficult
to satisfy Olympic expectations, especially in a field chock full of
Austrians.
Now he wants to distance himself from all the hype and commerce. "The
expectations were other people's," he told the AP. "I'm comfortable with
what I've accomplished, including at the Olympics."
The about-face has left Miller so confused that he can't get his stories
straight. In one breath, he talks about giving it his all, and in the next,
he talks about how hard he drank during the Games. "I just did it my way.
I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock.
And man, I rocked here."
Or: "My quality of life is the priority. I wanted to have fun here, to enjoy
the Olympic experience, not be holed up in a closet and not ever leave your
room."
Miller's act has clearly worn on his coaches, and Bill Marolt, chief
executive of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, suggested that
officials would have "a heart-to-heart" talk with Miller at the end of this
season regarding his behavior. Nor would Marolt speculate if Miller would be
back on the team. "I don't believe we should have conversations like this in
the media," Marolt said. "But clearly it will be something we will address
at the year's end, and I don't know where that will go right now."
What they should tell Miller is this: Everyone can sympathize with his
struggle to meet unrealistic expectations. And everyone respects what Miller
has done on skis, from his two silvers at the Salt Lake Games to the overall
World Cup title last season. But nobody respects the Bode Miller who showed
up here -- maybe not even Miller himself -- and unless he can compete
respectably, he shouldn't return to the team. There are few things less
worthy of respect than the athlete who pretends not to care about the
outcome. It's a bail-out position, a protection and an excuse. If you
pretend not to care, then no one can say you really lost. Miller never
committed to these Olympics, never put his ante on the table. He sauntered
around the Games as if he was just here to watch.
Which is mostly what he did.