Bode wins and the NY Times is there.
Can you say 'breathless reporting'?
NY Times
December 2, 2006
Returning to Form, Miller Captures Downhill
By NATHANIEL VINTON
BEAVER CREEK, Colo., Dec. 1 — Bode Miller, who searches for every shred of speed he can find on rugged, icy mountainsides where normal skiers cannot even stay upright, displayed presence of mind while blazing to victory in the terrifying downhill course here Friday.
Miller was negotiating a crucial, icy turn at about 60 miles an hour when a Slovenian coach in a bright green coat lost footing and slid into his path a few hundred feet below — which at Miller’s rate of speed did not allow for much time to react.
Miller stayed aggressive and kept plowing through the snowstorm to win his first race of the new World Cup season in a time of 1 minute 46.15 seconds.
“I would have had good cause for a re-run had I wanted one, but I hadn’t made any big mistakes, and I didn’t feel like going up and starting over,” Miller said. “He was out of the way and I just kept racing.”
Asked if he felt a jolt of adrenaline when he looked ahead and saw the possibility of a collision, Miller grinned.
“If you’ve seen that course, I don’t think there’s much room for a jolt of adrenaline,” he said.
The victory was the 22nd of Miller’s World Cup career and his first victory in two years in a World Cup downhill event. He has said he wanted to win 14 races this year and surpass the single-season record of 13, shared by Hermann Maier of Austria and Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden.
It was also a payoff for the sponsors that adopted Miller, a 29-year-old American racer, after a brutal year where he all but destroyed his public image with undiplomatic statements and the failure to win any medals at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy.
Miller’s victory was sweetened by a chance to share the podium with his teammate Steven Nyman, a 24-year-old from Utah who had never scored a top-three finish on the circuit.
In four years on the team, Nyman has been Miller’s copycat on the hill (with a wild, out-of-kilter technique) and his antithesis off it.
A deliciously awkward moment ensued when organizers handed Miller a bottle of Champagne; the United States racers are chafing under a new team policy that does not allow them to consume alcohol in the presence of the team’s staff.
Miller sprayed photographers with the Champagne and raised the bottle to within a few inches of his lips before looking toward his coaches waiting in the wings. He then rolled his eyes before taking a long sip and passing the bottle around.
Also sharing the podium with Miller was Didier Cuche of Switzerland, who finished second, 15-hundredths of a second behind Miller and 18-hundredths ahead of Nyman.
In the postrace news conference, Miller was asked to describe what it was like to see a body sliding across the downhill course as he hurtled through the steepest section. His answer was intricate and self-deprecating, a generous glimpse into what it is like to be a nimble and fearless downhill racer.
“It’s pretty quick if you compress the whole thing into the time frame I was dealing with,” he said. “It’s about a second and a half or two seconds of actual stuff that that guy brought to the table today.”
Miller said he first saw the falling figure during a desperate glance down the hill while trying to shift his weight forward, having been thrown off balance by a bump.
“Just as a reference you always try to glance down at the angle you’re going to need coming out of the next gate to get into Johno’s double there,” he said, referring to the two bumps where his coach, John McBride, stands during every edition of this annual race, sending radio reports to the skiers at the start.
“That was where the guy slipped out, and he slipped out basically right as I was glancing in that direction out of my peripheral vision,” Miller said. “He was wearing an orange coat.”
Then Miller paused to reconsider.
“Or reddish-orange or whatever it was.”
Again, Miller stopped, and then asked what color the coat was.
“Green!” shouted the reporters assembled for the news conference.
“O.K.,” said Miller, feigning embarrassment, and adding that it looked orange to him. “By the time I made the next transition I wasn’t looking at him anymore at all. That next turn is a fallaway and it absorbs all your attention as you get there.”
Miller carved a sharp arc through the snow and it was there that he saw the fallen worker tumbling less than 20 feet to his left as Miller cruised by at freeway speeds.
“He was going right across the track in a big ball of snow,” Miller said. “He was just a little orange spot in the snow. I’m sticking with orange.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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