BODE WINS, SKI TEAM GNASHES TEETH
Bode Miller won a World Cup downhill in Stelvio, Italy on Dec. 28, and now the U. S. ski team is making nice---and hiding frustration.
Miller left USSA last spring to race as an independent. It's been tried before, notably by great racers Kristina Kosnick and Julie Paresian, but it never worked. Having to do all the stuff that USSA handles for racers---hotel and airline reservations, race entry fees, meals, mandatory team captain's meetings before each event, the thousands of details of being a racer---it's nearly impossible to do on one's own. Worse, USSA has never been very cooperative towards independent racers. As for Bode, the ski team more or less ignored him.
But Bode assembled a full team of people to take care of everything so he could concentrate on just racing, with much more organization than any other independent racer ever managed. And now USSA is watching as sponsors and fans flock to Bode; and the ski team has to watch all that money flowing to him---and they get none of it.
USSA is addicted to rich donors and mega-sponsors. Seeing a racer outside its control raking in big sponsor bucks frustrates the organization. Suddenly, they are making nice.
That may be the explanation for the full page story on Bode's win on the USSA web site, a place where this non-team racer was previously ignored. While USSA, the federation for skiing and snowboarding, could ignore other independent racers, they can't ignore Bode-the-winner, though the Stelvio victory was his first since leaving the ski team. The next American was Marco Sullivan, in 12th place.
Bode's record ties him with Austrian legend Franz Klammer, and puts him just one win from tying for World Cup victories with Phil Mahre, the greatest male racer in U. S. history. It was Miller's 26th World Cup win.
The course is one of the most technical on the World Cup circuit, with jumps, rollers and quick direction changes. It winds through bright sun and shadows, and the quick change from sun to forest dimness is one of the biggest challenges to racers
Bode told the press that he was just trying to hold on towards the end of the downhill, he was exhausted. He always does well on the two-mile long Stelvio course, having won the downhill and super G there at the 2005 World Championships. The World Cup win puts him in third place in the overall standings.
Ski racing fans are waiting to see what happens in the next men's World Cup at Adelboden, Switzerland, on January 5. Miller is already among the top 10 men in World Cup wins. If he ties Mahre's record, he will be the historically best American male skier ever---and with years of career still in front of him.