Miller became a skier while growing up on a 500-acre forest in New Hampshire, home-schooled by self-described hippie parents in a house with no electricity or water. (Given that 1998 two-time gold-medal skier Picabo Street grew up under similar circumstances, this might be the template for creating great U.S. skiers.)

Miller’s skiing career has been defined by doing the unexpected. Instead of working on technique first and speed later, he did the opposite. In 1996, he became the first U.S. skier to wear the hourglass-shaped skis that every competitor wears today.

He could have quit after the 2005 World Cup season and still had a place as a legend secured.

So why didn’t he just quit? Everyone around him has made clear that Miller hasn’t trained as intensely approaching the Olympics, and his disappointing 2006 World Cup season. And all of the outrageous comments to the media — the remark to “60 Minutes” about skiing while hung over, the comments to Rolling Stone about Armstrong and Barry Bonds being drug cheats while also decrying the “weird” and “bad” testing system — sound like a person who wants to get out, can’t figure out how to do it, and is hoping someone shoves him out.

It may well be that Miller still likes skiing; he just doesn’t love being the Great American Skier.

The thing is, Miller’s nonchalant reactions to his medal-free runs in Turin are not outside the realm of his personality. He’s always testing the limits of officials, and always making clear that he’s not going to hate on himself, good or bad run. He also still has one more event to go in Turin, so it’s not as if he has no shot at a medal.

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“One of the good things about my career is I have such extensive knowledge, so I always go as hard as I can,” Miller told The Associated Press. “Some guys can go 70-80 percent and get results, but I wouldn’t do that.

“If things went well, I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold.”

As a person, what’s healthier? Miller taking it in stride that he straddled a gate (as he has done many times before)? Or Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden setting his alarm so he can start his work day about the same time bartenders are announcing last call? Miller taking some time off to golf with his brother? Or Tiger Woods appearing in a commercial where he makes clear that to be a champion golfer, you have to work out practically around the clock, even in a drowning rain storm?

If Bode Miller wants to give up any of his fame, money or status, that’s his business. It’s not like his performance directly affects his teammates (well, except for giving others a chance to win). And the idea that he should do it for his country as some sort of proxy for national pride went out with the Cold War.

Perhaps Miller, approaching 30, wants to keep skiing, but is discovering there’s more to life. Perhaps he has some other personal issues. Perhaps he wants to convert to another religion.

Anything would be a guess, of course. I am but someone from the hoi polloi, trying to guess what’s happening in the mind of someone rich and famous, someone who appears to be on a mellow mission to torpedo his status. We might wish to be in Bode Miller’s place, but we don’t know what it’s like. And if he doesn’t want to be in that place, and he’s willing to accept the consequences of his decision, then that’s his business. Though unfortunate he doesn’t want to take his talent to its greatest potential, he’s already proven to us, and to himself, what he can do.

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