Bode Miller isn’t a typical athlete from an Olympic sport. Every four years, we take two weeks out to appreciate sports that, normally, might as well not exist. From ski jumping to biathlon, curling to speedskating, these anonymous sports are mostly made up of anonymous athletes, with faces that we see everywhere for those two week, but otherwise wouldn’t recorgnize if we passed them walking down the street.
Occasionally, though, some of these anonymous athletes find a way to stand out from the crowd. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals, and became an international star. Apolo Ohno, now the all-time leading medal winner among Winter Olympians, with seven, gained national fame and attention after winning Dancing With The Stars.
Miller, though, clearly marches to the beat of a different drum. He burst onto the national scene back in 2002, when his skis carried him to two silver medals at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002. But in the time since, we’ve come to know Miller more for his antics off the ski slopes than his success on them. In a television interview, Miller admitted to skiing drunk, and compared it to drunk driving, comments he later apologized for. He also broke away from the U.S. Ski Team for a time, a move he later would go back on, as well.
But it was his performance at the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, that seemed like the thing that would define him. Miller went into the games as the biggest star – much like Lindsey Vonn was this year. Nike had an ad campaign built around him, called “Join Bode”. He gave interviews to 60 Minutes (where the drunk skiing comments came from) and Rolling Stone.
Unfortunately for Miller, though, his performance was nowhere near what he did in ’02. He failed to medal in any event, and didn’t finish higher than sixth place. Pictures were snapped of him partying throughout the Games, and it became clear that he wasn’t putting his whole effort into the Games. At that point, it looked like Miller, despite his immense talent, would be remembered as a colossal disappointment.
But then Miller made this year’s Olympic team, and after the epic disappointment he delivered in 2006, came into this year’s games as just one of the competitors, part of the wake behind the Lindsey Vonn hype machine. Only this time, at the age of 32, Miller is actually producing in the way that he was expected to four years ago.
Things started off well in Vancouver for Miller, as he came away with the bronze medal in the downhill, and then followed that up with a silver in the Super-G. It was yesterday’s performance in the super combined, though, that allowed Miller to fully erase his past failings. He found himself in seventh place after the slalom portion of the competition. But after a blistering run in the downhill portion, he had a gold medal to show for it.
Finally, Bode Miller can be called an Olympic Champion. It may have come four years later than we all expected it would, but it’s happened nonetheless. And, not only that, Miller now can be considered one of the greatest skiers of all-time. He’s one of only 12 skiers to ever win three Olympic medals in a single Olympics, and is one of only two male skiers to win Olympic medals in four different events. He’s clearly staked his claim as the greatest American skier of all-time, as he now holds the record for most medals by an American skier.
In the space of a week, Bode Miller rewrote his legacy. He entered these Games as an unfulfilled talent, and will leave them as the greatest American skier of all-time. He hasn’t been the easiest person to root for over the course of his career, but that doesn’t matter now. All that matters, in the end, is what he’s done on the slopes in Whistler this week.
Miller’s done it his own way throughout his career, and now, after all of the trials and tribulations of the last eight years, he has finally come full-circle. No longer is Bode Miller a disappointment, or a failure.
Now he can be called something else: an Olympic Champion.
