COMMENTARY

By Jim Litke

updated 3:20 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2006

Jim Litke

SESTRIERE, Italy - I spotted Bode Miller a lead of about 100 yards.

He went by me jogging toward the exit in sneakers, having already ditched his skis at the finish line after a tie for sixth in the Olympic giant slalom.

“Got a minute?”

He laughed. “Not really.”

Miller still had his racing suit on and was using his poles for balance in the slushy snow. I was wearing a heavy parka and a pair of old-school galoshes that first saw service before Miller was born. Even so, about a quarter-mile later, on the gravel road that runs from the Sises ski hill to the athletes’ village, we were dead even.

“C’mon,” I panted. “Stop. Two questions.”

Miller seemed amused, slowing to a fast walk. After four races, he’s still 0-for-the-Olympics. Twice, he failed to finish. The second time, Miller spun off the course and skied a back route through the woods rather than entertain questions. No such luck Monday.

“Is there a common denominator to all your races here — fitness, equipment, anything?”

“They were all different,” Miller said. “The downhill, the other guys just found more speed. The combined, I hung the tip out, so I guess you put that off to pilot error. The super-G, that was pilot error, too, but it was understandable. That was a spot on the course where I had to push it, but it was still pilot error.

“It wasn’t equipment or any one thing,” he added. “It was all fairly normal stuff.”

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The giant slalom consists of two runs, with the times added together. On the first run, Miller’s ski crushed a rock at the fourth gate, losing some of its edge and hampering his ability to cut sharply. He finished 12th. The second run, going full-bore, he put up the fourth-best time — eventually bettered only by the three guys who shared the podium.

Miller didn’t offer any alibis, saying he made three “legit” mistakes in the second run, the biggest one at the bottom of the hill where all three medalists gained on him big-time.

“Against those guys right now,” Miller added, “that won’t do.”

The guys who have won the gold medals that a pre-Olympic media blitz back in the States would have you believe were being minted with Miller’s name already stamped on them have only so much in common. They range in age from still-green, 21-year-old U.S. teammate Ted Ligety to wizened, 34-year-old Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt.

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None of them have revolutionized their sport the way, Miller, 28, has. Of course, none had a reputation as a party animal, either, or had done half as much to earn it since arriving in what is essentially a one-saloon town.

Everybody has tried to figure out what makes Miller tick, and more than anything else, his late nights have provided a convenient — if sometimes too easy — way to explain his poor results here. But teammate Daron Rahlves, who’s traveled the World Cup circuit with Miller for nearly a decade — including last season, when Miller became the first American to win the overall championship since 1983 — says very little has changed.

“That’s Bode. He doesn’t do anything different any other time. He’s been doing it for years. Nothing really changes,” Rahlves said. “Everybody is seeing what he’s doing here, but it’s not any different from anywhere else.”

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Up in the stands, Miller’s father, Woody, has his own theory.

“There was a time last summer when I was giving him a ride to the airport and he described his situation to me. He said it was a no-win situation for him,” Woody recalled. “He couldn’t go back on the commitments that he’d taken. He said he didn’t have the drive to be as big a star as he could be, either.”

In light of those remarks, I asked Miller whether he would have done anything differently.

He shook his head, then glanced over in my direction.

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

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