Miller time is back

By Marina Knight
It’s difficult not to write about Bode Miller, when he keeps injecting himself into the headlines.
The excitement he has peppered into the World Cup in weeks past continued at Wengen, when Miller won the downhill, placed fifth in the slalom and was third in super-combined.
The downhill win tied him with Phil Mahre for the number of World Cup wins; one more for Miller and he’s the best American skier ever, on paper.
Beginning with the slalom: Pulling the results up and seeing Miller’s name in fifth (his best result since he won a slalom in 2004 at Sestriere) was sort of a shock. He’s struggled so much in the past two years, flailing through gates, then shooting out of the course approximately 23 times since his Sestriere win. But it seems finally Miller has dialed in his equipment to the point where he can ski like he wants to.
That is the issue with his slalom skiing. He could probably have taken a bit of edge off his style, finished the races somewhere in the middle of the pack and called it a day, but instead Miller refused to compromise and continued to ski straight, aggressive lines, which he may argue his skis could not keep up with.
After the race at Wengen, Miller talked about having equipment he could finally ski aggressively on. Here’s an excerpt from his blog on wcsn.com:
“Most of my problems in the slalom have been because I have been struggling to find a pair I can be aggressive on. We hired a new guy to build the skis and this was his first set. They were already significantly better than anything we had. In the slalom, there was a bunch of new snow so the training runs were junk. I still wasn’t 100 percent comfortable and I didn’t push things very hard. I skied all right and finished fifth. It was encouraging for the future because I have a lot more speed out there. I was definitely happy with that result.”
Kind of a nonchalant response. Most athletes would be more than happy with the finish, but Miller is happy only when he’s given it his all.
Which is why he was all smiles after the downhill, which he’s now won twice in a row in Wengen.
The Lauberhornrennen is the longest downhill on tour, running about two and a half minutes. There’s a long, flat section at the top, then a narrow jump, the Canadian Corner into a very narrow section that dives under a train tunnel, then some super-G-style turns on moderate terrain and a cranker to the finish.
Miller’s run was not perfect. He came into the Hundschopf on his tails, and made mistakes on the Canadian Corner and various other places along the way, but he skied the turn before the tunnel amazingly well and picked up lots of time — about a second — on the bottom of the course. Some credit should be given to his serviceman Robbie for that.
So, one more win and he passes Phil Mahre for the most American World Cup victories. But the record is not much more than that for Miller. It serves as backup for what he already believes about himself: That he is the greatest American skier ever. Without that mentality, it’s safe to say he would not be where he is.
More important for the sport is not that Miller approached a record, but that he’s made skiing exciting again. No one skis like he does; when he’s on his game, it’s electric. People get excited; in fact, they go berserk. They stand on the side of the hill and cover their eyes sometimes, or stand frozen, then cheer when the split shows he’s in the lead. They set off firecrackers when he wins and tote American flags around the village. The fans love “Miller Time” and, lucky for them, it’s returned.