Mike Celizic

SESTRIERE, Italy - Bode Miller could have partied all night with the Swedish bikini team, come to the start house with a lampshade on his head, and if he had snagged a gold medal, it would have been just another chapter in the legend.

Instead, he was seen having some beers with his buds around midnight, showed up just an hour before the race and bombed in the race that will define his career. In just a bit less than two minutes on a brilliantly sunny day in the mountains of northern Italy, Bode went from ski hero to ski bum.

Yes, that’s harsh, especially with four more events ahead of him, any or all of which could yield medals. But after all his antics and blabbing leading up to the Games, Miller needs to do more than talk. And he didn't do that in the downhill. So he needs to in the combined. So far, he's on track after taking an early lead with a solid downhill run.

We can’t get inside Miller’s head, which is probably a good thing, because it’s probably loaded with clutter. He has always enjoyed a beer or eight, even on nights before big races. Last year, he won the World Cup title, and it’s hard to criticize anyone’s habits when he ends the season as the best in the world at what he does.

But this year has been chaos from the start. Even before the infamous “60 Minutes” interview when he confessed to skiing “wasted,” he was taking shots at drug testing, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation and anything else that wandered into his line of fire.

The more he talked, the more he was pursued by the media and the worse he skied. By the time he rolled into Italy, he was telling the media that we shouldn’t concentrate so much on medals.

Now, it’s a lot easier to climb on his case — or six-pack — about the partying. That’s what happens when you finish fifth in the biggest race of your life. People start wanting to know why.

If he won, no problem with having some beers at midnight and leaving for the race an hour before it started, which he has done before. But lose, and it’s a different story. Everything is fair game.

It was there for him, and it wasn’t a matter of not carrying enough speed. It was a matter of blowing it at the end, the part of the race that champions conquer, the part of the race that ate up Bode.

There are still the slaloms, he said, not to mention the downhill combined. The one race he had to show up for at the peak of his powers was Sunday, and he stayed up late, arrived late, blew up late, and went home early without chatting personally with his buddies in the media.

“I haven’t really had a great slalom all year but I think it’s ready to happen, I feel good,” Miller said, Reuters reported. “My balance is better, my equipment’s better and last time I was on this slalom hill here, I won by a second or so.”

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So hopefully he's figured it out. If ever there is a time to get a good night’s sleep and maybe skip the beer the night before, it's now. If ever there were a time to get to the hill early instead of just before your start time, now would be a good time.

Miller did neither for the downhill. If he’s one of those people who want to see how far they can push the rules before they get caught, he’s just got the answer, which is not as far as he’s been pushing.

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“I think this (downhill) was a confidence builder for the (combined) downhill too, I know I can come out and really ski this hill 100 percent and that’s important,” Miller said, Reuters reported.

Miller doesn’t need to make any more statements in the media; he needs to make them on the slopes.

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