Mike Celizic

I got a lot of e-mails during the Olympics asking me why I had to be so negative about the home team during these Games. And all I could say was that it was because there was so much to be negative about.

And, while there were plenty of "happy-happy, joy-joy" stories which are chronicled in a companion piece to this, there were far too many times when the only thing a humble scribe could do was follow the first rule of writing sports columns, to whit: The task of a sports columnist is to arrive at the scene of a catastrophe and shoot the survivors.

Much as I’d have liked to put a positive spin on the Adventures of Bode Miller, I couldn’t do it without resorting to such ploys as: "Although American medal hopeful Bode Miller failed to complete another race, Sestriere bars reported a 40-percent increase in sales, which they attributed entirely to his visits."

But Bode wasn’t the only American bummer during these Games. As a unit, Team USA fell well short of expectations in both total medals and gold medals. We’ll leave it for others to argue why.

My feeling is that it’s because of those team hats that look as if the athletes are wearing their underwear on their heads — backwards. But I’ll admit that four years ago, the Russian sailor hats were just as silly, and that team set a record for medals.

Whatever the reasons, there were plenty of disappointments in just about every nook and cranny of Turin. Here’s our list of the 10 biggest busts of the Games of the XX Winter Olympics.

Bode Miller
He said all along that Olympic medals weren’t what they’re cracked up to be. One thing you can’t accuse Miller of is not backing up his words with actions, whether they were about the unimportance of medals or the benefits of a beer or 12 the night before a big race.

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

Still, we in the media believed his sponsors and apologists who said that Miller, who won skiing’s World Cup last year, was a threat to medal in each of the five Alpine disciplines. Surely, we thought, when the sport’s reigning nonconformist and bad boy took his place in the start house, his competitive instincts would take over. That’s how it’s been for all the great champions, from Jean Claude Killy to Franz Klammer to Rosi Mittermeier to Janica Kostelic to Hermann Maier.

But not Bode. He lost the downhill in the very last section of the course, straddled a gate in the slalom part of the combined and kept on coming up small until the very end, when he made it through at least four gates of the slalom before straddling another one and skiing off into a very murky sunset.

It’s hard to think of a bigger American disappointment in the history of the Summer and Winter Games than Miller. He wasn’t in shape when he arrived, never gave himself a chance and never showed he understood what was at stake.

His defenders — and he still has plenty of them — say he was true to himself; he did it his way. There’s no arguing that. And the only hope is that his way isn’t contagious.

Shani and Chad

NBC VIDEO Super Shani Feb. 24: "Today" show host Matt Lauer speaks with U.S. speedskater Shani Davis about winning gold and silver medals at this year's Games. Today Show Olympics

The two men who turned men’s speedskating into a running soap opera are unique in these Games for being both one of America’s best stories as well as one of its worst.

Chad Hedrick started the soap opera when he came in declaring himself to be in the hunt for five gold medals, the same number Eric Heiden won in 1980. But Heiden won five individual medals; Hedrick was going for four individual and one in a new event called the team pursuit. When Shani Davis said he wasn’t participating in the pursuit — an event he had never competed in before — to concentrate on his own races, Hedrick decided he’d been betrayed.

NBC VIDEO Hedrick discusses winning bronze Feb. 22: U.S. speedskater Chad Hedrick talks with "Today" show host Matt Lauer about his events and the rivalry between him and Shani Davis Today Show Olympics

When Davis won the 1,000, becoming the first black to ever win an individual gold in the Winter Olympics, Hedrick didn’t even congratulate him. When Davis took silver and Hedrick bronze in the 1,500, Davis pouted about that snub and Hedrick whined again about the team pursuit medal he didn’t get.

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Opinion: U.S. fared well, but bad news dominated Celizic: U.S. did itself proud at Olympics   Slide show: Best photos of 2006 Games Celizic: America's 10 biggest Olympic busts High-tech spectacle ends the Turin Games Celizic: Grazie, Turin, for a pretty good Olympics After Hedrick, Davis; U.S. rebuilding for ’10 Team USA finishes with 25 medals Slide shows: Top photos, emotional moments Commentary: Feuds, partying, black auras help classify losers Winter Olympics Section Front   Add Winter Olympics headlines to your news reader: