All of Miller’s best moves take place off course

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Bode Miller skis on a snow shrouded course during the Men's Super-G.

Contrast with skiers Ligety, Aamodt reveals difference in perspective

SESTRIERE, Italy - For anybody who still cares, explaining why Bode Miller is still 0-for-the-Olympics is as simple as this:

All of his best moves take place off the course.

And Saturday was no exception. Instead of falling off the wagon late at night in one of the local saloons or discotheques, this time Miller slid off the Kandahar Banchetta course in bright sunlight little more than a minute into his super-G run.

Zooming through a section of the course known as “Aqua Minerale,” or “Mineral Water” — feel free to insert your own joke here — he veered off his line, then straight into a gate and finally outside the blue lines marking the course. A lesser skier would have been knocked to his knees, but Miller somehow maintained his balance, an even more impressive feat considering he had only one ski underneath him at the time.

He then proceeded to slither down the hill with his body leaning at a 45-degree angle over his right leg, using the left one to wrestle the other ski back from somewhere behind him and onto terra firma once again.

And no sooner had Miller completed that nifty maneuver than he came up with an even better one.

He disappeared.

The closest Miller came, in fact, to making an appearance at the bottom of the hill was when the huge video screen plopped down in the snow there flashed his bib number.

“No. 23,” it read. “Did Not Finish.”

A cynic might suggest that “Did Not Start” might have been just as appropriate, since Miller came here favored to win a medal of some color in all five Alpine disciplines, and hasn’t really shown up in the three run so far.

A week ago, he finished fifth in the downhill. Four days ago, after putting nearly a second between himself and his toughest rivals by smoking the downhill portion of the Olympic combined, Miller straddled a gate in the first of two slalom runs and was disqualified.

After that race, at least, Miller stopped alongside a snow fence within moments of being notified of the DQ and patiently explained what happened. No such luck this time.

By process of elimination, the task fell first to U.S. Ski Team spokesman Tom Kelly. Walking down near the finish line, Kelly was asked how Miller handled Saturday’s “DNF,” how he got down off the mountain, and where he might have been headed. He shrugged.

“Mystery and suspense,” Kelly said.

The same job fell next to U.S. coach Phil McNichol.

“You’re going to have to ask him,” McNichol said, referring to Miller, “how he feels.”

The coach then repeated what has become the party line about how well Miller had been training, how he was engaged, energetic and a good teammate. He even made a point of volunteering that Miller got on the radio to give U.S. skier Daron Rahlves, starting six places behind him at No. 29, a scouting report on the course.

McNichol did not add — perhaps because there was no need — that it must have been a short conversation.

And speaking of short, this was the coach’s answer to how he felt about Miller being spotted in one bar around midnight on the eve of the downhill and in another bar, with a shot of tequila in one hand and a beer in the other, the night that U.S. teammate Ted Ligety won the gold in the combined:

“It’s not something I’m going to get into. Bode’s a big boy,” McNichol said. “He’s an adult.”

Maybe.

After the combined race, the contrast between the 28-year-old Miller and Ligety, a 21-year-old from Park City, Utah, who worked as a forerunner at the 2002 Winter Games, was revealing. The kid, despite spotting Miller seven years and a world of experience, was already mature enough to get his gold BEFORE he started celebrating.

After the super-G race, the contrast between Miller and 34-year-old gold medalist Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway was more revealing still. Aamodt, like Miller, exploded on the scene as a youngster, but he won Olympic gold at the beginning, middle and again now as the end of his career begins to come into focus.

The Norwegian begged off a chance to talk about all the sacrifices required to be that good over such a long stretch.

“If you love to do something, it’s easy to spend a lot of time on the hill, spend time training,” he said. “And if you work hard over a long period of time with a lot of focus, good things will happen to you in the end.”

But Aamodt was more forthcoming about what he would advise somebody who wanted to follow in his tracks.

“The challenge is not to have any injuries, and to use your head,” he said, “while you’re having fun.”

No kidding.

The Associated Press.