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torino 2006: predictions, technique, tactics, and two bode bits

My predictions for the alpine events have suffered a few bruises, but they haven’t been too off-the-mark.

In the Womens DH, I missed on the podium predictions, but one of my “dark horse” picks, Michaela Dorfmeister, took gold, and another (Anja Paerson) took the bronze – not a total washout. And how could I have predicted that Kostelic would be sick, or that Kildow would injure her hip?

In Womens Combined, I was spot-on for gold (Kostelic) and bronze (Paerson). Again, Kildow’s injury proved problematic. But Shild was amongst my “dark horses,” so I did pretty well.

The Mens SG was another washout for the U.S. men, with Miller crashing out and Rahlves over-skiing the course. I was correct in predicting that Hermann Maier would win silver, and had the course been 200 yards longer, he probably would’ve won it. I had the winner, Aamodt, as a “dark horse,” and he really skied the course very, very well.

This leads to a comment on ski technique: it’s amazing how the old-timers are showing that good technique and smart tactics win races. Deneriaz, Kostelic and Aamodt have all been in big events before, and they know that you need to ski the whole course well – and with a smart head – to win. All three used sound, non-flashy technique to win their races. All three kept a level head throughout, and their wins are proof that the tried-and-true simply works. Even Ted Ligety did the same: smart DH tactics and skiing within his ability in SL to win the gold. He had nothing to lose, no preconceived pressure to live up to – it helped him, for sure.

Which brings me to the two U.S. men who haven’t lived up to the media-fueled hype: Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves. I’ll start with Rahlves, who is living up to his “great World Cup racer, shinking flower in the Olympics” reputation. For me, the problem with Rahlves is that he hasn’t mastered the mental game: he’s placing so much pressure on himself that he starts to doubt his own ability when it counts most: in the race, on the course. In today’s Super G, Daron simply over-skied things on top, where he needed to be fast. Add in the softer snow, and his approach was doomed from the start. As my old coach, Olle Larsson, used to say, racing on soft snow is like caressing your significant other’s face: you need to be light and gentle on it to reap the rewards.

Bode, on the other hand, hasn’t been a disappointment to me. He’s just been unlucky.

There are people who are being very, very critical of Bode Miller, saying that he’s been a letdown, a poor sport, a bad example to young racers, etc. Most of the people saying this stuff in the media know absolutely nothing about ski racing. Writers like Tony Kornheiser, of the Washington Post, were belittling Bode well ahead of the games, mainly due to things he said on 60 Minutes and interviews granted to Rolling Stone and Outside magazines.

But folks like Kornheiser, as is the case with most of the U.S. media, know very little about ski racing and its challenges. It’s a gueling sport for those who compete in only one type of event, let alone those who compete in all disciplines. Being an alpine ski racer from the U.S. means living a majority of the year outside of your home country, facing crowds who have plenty of home-grown heroes to cheer on. It means going from hotel to pension to apartment, often sleeping in strange beds and eating strange food. When you’re not on the snow, you’re in the gym, in the bus or in a lodge, trying to keep your mind clear. Ann the time on the snow involves long hours, often getting up well before dawn and committing 6 to 8 hours per day to sustained training – often at altitude, at that.

It’s not like being a star in the NFL, MLB or NBA, where (aside from a few international players), you’re never more than 3,000 miles from home. An alpine ski racer spends more time working out per year than most athletes in the so-called “glamour sports” of the U.S., and the American racers have to deal with competitions that comprise of mostly “away games.” It’s not easy, and often requires more mental and physical fortitude than most American athletes and writers can comprehend.

That’s why it’s great to see articles that get it. Of course, it helps that one of these stories is by a former U.S. Ski Team racer, but still – these folks get ski racing, and they also “get” Bode Miller.

Still, however, these are a couple of voices in a sea of U.S. media criticism. And to the folks who were counting on Miller to bring home a neck laden with nothing but “large, gold-plated CDs” (my initial impression of the Torino medals, and I’m not alone in this impression), his lack of victories has forced them into “damage control” mode.

To the marketing departments of NBC Universal, Visa, Nike, etc., anything less than Bode winning everything is seen as “a disaster.” But I don’t think that the ad campaigns did anything to harm him – like the 60 Minutes interview and the interviews for the magazines, they were filmed before the season started.

The same thing happened when Michelle Kwan dropped out: advertisers groaned, and NBC spun it as tragedy. In my mind, Kwan shouldn’t have been there at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that she was granted her USFSA exemption because of pressure from NBC Universal, who had filmed an extensive ad campaign featuring her.

(In fact, NBC edited a lot of their Olympic ads to include Sasha Cohen, but the edit looked like a hack job: while the Kwan footage was filmed by NBC specifically for the advert, the Cohen footage was stock competition film that lacked the lighting and makeup.)

So NBC will paint Bode’s “failure” in the downhill (0.11 seconds out of a tie for the bronze) and straddling of a slalom gate (when he was trying to straighten out his line on what was, for him, a conservative run). And the U.S. viewing public, who NBC already views as rank morons (look at their pre-digested baby food presentation of the Games during prime-time, even for the SLC games in ’02), buy the spin: that Bode “is a failure.”

But Bode has been anything but a failure, to my eyes. He’s been going for it, but he’s not making the Olympics a “do-or-die” thing. After all, he’s won the World Cup overall title – something only one other U.S. man has ever done before – and has nothing left to prove. Sure, a medal in Torino would be nice, but it’s not the ultimate goal for Bode. Sure, it’s iconoclastic and doesn’t play into the media and sponsor campaigns, but it’s being very true to skiing: it’s an individual sport, and Bode is, if anything, an individual.

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