The Snow Lover's Trivia Bode Miller Leads Record U.S. Olympic Year
Bode Miller's failed to meet expectation four years ago at the Turin Olympic Games, finishing only two of five races, and no higher than fifth place. In those Olympics the U.S. ski team left Italy with a only two Alpine medals.
This time around in the Vancouver Olympic Games the Americans were the best, led by the efforts of Bode Miller.
With Miller the U.S. ski team medaled eight times during the Vancouver Games, the highest total for U.S. skiers at any Olympics, and twice as many as any other country collected over the past two weeks. Not only did Miller win three medals, gold in the super-combined, silver in the super-G, bronze in the downhill, he also pushed and prodded teammates to follow his go-for-broke style. His fellow teammates, Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso, and Andrew Weibrecht, brought home a gold, two silvers, and two bronze. The old U.S. team record for Alpine medals in the Winter Olympics was five, set back in 1984. As a matter of fact, Americans brought home a total of five Alpine medals from the 1998, 2002 and 2006 Winter Games combined.
Whether Miller will be around in four years is unknown. He will be 36 at the next Olympic Games. However, he certainly seemed rejuvenated at the Vancouver Games, talking about "energy" and "excitement" and "passion" and being "inspired" by teammates. Unlike at the Turin Games, when he stayed on his own in an RV, tuned out the races and partied hard, this time Miller lived and trained with the rest of the U.S. ski team.
Bode Miller is an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist, a two-time overall World Cup champion in 2005 and 2008, and is generally considered the greatest American alpine skier of all time. In 2008, Miller and Lindsey Vonn helped the United States sweep the men's and women's overall World Cup titles for the first time in 25 years. With 32 World Cup victories, he is the most successful American alpine ski racer of all time. He became the fifth man to win World Cup races in all five disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill, and combined. He is the only ski racer in history to win five World Cup races in each of the five alpine disciplines. In the Winter Olympics he has won five medals, the most of any U.S. skier , two silvers (giant slalom and combined) in Salt Lake City 2002, and now three more medals at the Vancouver Games. Miller is one of five skiers who have won Olympic medals in four different disciplines, matching the feats of Kjetil André Aamodt and female racers Anja Pärson, Janica Kostelic, and Katja Seizinger. On May 12, 2007, Miller left the U.S. Ski Team and raced independently for his personally-financed "Team America" for two seasons. In October of 2009 Miller rejoined the U.S. Ski Team.
We know that Bode Miller is a real talent, an unbelievable athlete and skier. The difference for Miller during these Vancouver Games is that Bode had the opportunity to come back to the U.S. ski team and be a positive team member.
And he did just that.
