Bode-cious

Meanwhile, the continuing saga of Bode Miller. . . .

When speed skater Dan Jansen kept falling in his bid for an Olympic gold medal, he won the sympathy of a nation. Many Americans continued to cheer Jansen on as he cocentrated on getting another chance and doing better, even while he continued to battle personal demons. He finally won a gold medal in Lillehammer in 1994. Bode Miller is the anti-Jansen. He's been so overhyped as a skier who could win races in his sleep, he's apparently decided to just that. He was so pumped up by the sports press in advance of the Games as the greatest thing on skis since Jean-Claude Killy, he's become complacent enough to stop trying. And he has. Miller has shown little desire to do better next time; he seems to believe that all he has to do to win a race is to show up.

Miller, the skier known for getting wasted before a race - like Arlo Guthrie in "Alice's Restaurant," he gets himself good and drunk so that he's at his best the next day - has had three chances for a medal. In the downhill, he came in fifth. In the combined, he got disqualified. In the Super G, he failed to finish. Nike invested all that dough in their Bode ad campaign for this?

Complacency is the only explanation for Miller's stumbles. He comes from a nice family, they're all alive and well (Dan Jansen had to deal with a sister dying of cancer while competing), Miller himself is well-trained - in short, there doesn't seem to be anything that could be weighing heavily on his mind. Unless maybe he still has issues with growing up in a house with no electricity.

Miller still has two events to ski in, so maybe he'll wise up. I get the feeling, though, that waiting for Miller to wise up is like waiting for John Kerry to loosen up. He's lucky he's not a baseball player - after three strikes, he'd be out. There's one bright side to Miller's defeats, though - maybe he'll forget they ever happened when he finally wakes up! :-O