About an hour after he and Maier won gold and bronze, Austria raised its Alpine haul to nine medals when Michaela Dorfmeister and Alexandra Meissnitzer finished 1-3 in the women’s super-G, a few mountains away.

The United States, meanwhile, is stuck on one medal: Ted Ligety’s gold in the men’s combined. He’ll be among the favorites in Saturday’s slalom, the last Alpine event and Miller’s last medal hope.

Ligety missed a gate in the giant slalom’s first leg, as did Miller’s co-headliner on the U.S. Ski Team, lower-key Daron Rahlves.

Owner of 12 World Cup wins and a 2001 world title, Rahlves was thought to be a serious medal contender at his final Olympics. Yet the 32-year-old Californian will retire with nothing better than a seventh-place finish from seven races over three Winter Games.

“I really felt like we had a chance, where we could bring medals back down in every event. I’m just shaking my head at it right now,” Rahlves said. “If you get a gold medal in the Olympics, it doesn’t matter what else you’ve done.”

Miller, one of the few stars from any nation entered in all five Alpine races, leaves little doubt he doesn’t share that philosophy.

Over and over, he’s said it’s more important whether he feels good about a race than whether he was good enough to beat everybody else. He calls satisfying “my subjective criteria” his biggest concern — rather than the “objective result” measured by the clock. It’s more true to the Olympic spirit, he’s said.

“He’s of the mind-set he wants to inspire with great skiing,” U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt said, “and he’s not really focused on the results.”

His father, Woody, had a different take, saying Miller’s attitude is more like “What am I going to do with a gold medal?”

“He has this ambivalence with succeeding,” the elder Miller said, sitting in the stands at Monday’s race. “It’s part of who he is.”

Slide show   Emotional Moments Feb. 26: See photos of athletes' highs and lows from Sunday.

As a double silver medalist at the 2002 Olympics, and the reigning overall World Cup champion, Miller was burdened by outsized expectations. That, despite the way his 2005-06 season had gone before arriving in Sestriere: 27 races, 17 finished, one victory.

“He’s still not as good as he was last year,” said Italian Alberto Tomba, a two-time Olympic champion in giant slalom and one of Alpine skiing’s greats. “It’s not easy to get back to winning after going through a bit of a rough period.”

How far has Miller’s stock fallen?

After he finished his first run Monday, the PA announcer’s voice boomed: “Great time, with all the mistakes. Congratulations! We’ll see you in the second run.”

Talk about setting the bar low.

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