I’m thrilled. I had had enough of the Bode hype before the olympics even started.
“Oh, Bode…share your philosophy of life with us as you demonstrate skiing skills that border on the mystical”.
“Your parents were hippies? Wow. What free spirits they must be.”
“It’s another Nike ad! Look at Bode’s stubbled face and the stare that reflects the competitive spirit that obviously burns brightly inside!”
Crunch time…c-ya.
And before any of you start in with armchair psycology diagnoses of self-esteem or jealousy issues on my part, that’s a dry hole. I’m just enjoying the fall of another object of overhyping. The more NBC and Nike want me to worship him, the more I resist.
First of all, Benny Raich is the best overall skier in the world right now with Michael Walchhofer and Bode Miller a distant second and third. If anyone had any shot at five gold medals it’s Raich (but that’s a bit of a stretch, he’s not much of a downhiller). Raich performed well in the events he should have (except for a rather disappointing performance in the Combined) but with two golds I’m sure he’s at least somewhat pleased.
Bode isn’t ranked number one in any of the alpine events this year. He is only ranked one, two, or three in one event (the combined in which is ranked second). The season in which he dominated was last season and if memory serves he tailed off a bit at the end.
The only real shock is that Rocca didn’t finish the Slalom and Raich didn’t finish the combined. I suppose it’s also a bit of a shock that Deneriaz won the Downhill but the nature of the downhill allows for someone who is just having a great week to win (the same goes for the Super G as well but there wasn’t really any surprises there).
All I’m saying is that, although I think Bode Miller is a world class jerk, he should have never expected or been expected to win a huge haul of medals. The fact that he was is nothing but arrogance.
He’s an alpine skier who was the overall champion last year. THere was a huge story about him a few months ago about the fact that he said he had skied either hungover or drunk on occasion (I forget but it was one of the two).
Yeah, he had all this hype over him, but wouldn’t shut his mouth and kept embarrassing the US Olympic ski team with stupid comments about skiing drunk, about how Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong both knowingly used drugs to cheat, and so on.
And yet, he seems, mostly, to have simply tagged along on the hype to make money from the commercials. I don’t recall him claiming to have actually been better than the rest of the world, and his comments as he packed his bags made no claim that he had been robbed or that anyone was responsible for his performance but him.
He seems to have simply been having fun through the whole thing. The corporate sponsors may be guilty of foolishly offering him money to hype their products, but he seems to have just been “Bode” throughout the whole thing.
That’s what I got from him. I seem to recall reading in an International Herald Tribune article where he stated he didn’t care if he didn’t win any medals. There’s also the rumors of him partying and out everynight til late drinking. Blame Nike if anything.
Sounds similar to what happened to that swimming chap at the last olympics. Phelps was it? He got hyped to the max but didn’t live up to the hyped expectations (still did quite well if I recall.) Sad thing about him was that he didn’t seem to buy in to the hype, and just wanted to swim his races.
Thanks for the spoiler, Dude The NBC Olympic coverage is running the downhill now, but I guess I won’t be on the edge of the couch waiting for Bode Miller’s run
Right, he wasn’t going around claiming to be the greatest, and apparently those really familiar with the sport, as opposed to the “scene”, knew he was in no way a sure shot. When will sponsors learn?
I believe that he skiied whe he was still drunk from the previous night. The same thing Max McGee admitted to doing about 40 years ago, before the Super Bowl. Everyone thought that was cute then.
I thought his take on the medal fetish was pretty cool, actually. I’ve always been annoyed by people who only pay attention to the first, second and third place finishers. And counting medals is just the dumbest thing I can imagine.
The clueless one here is Nike. Miller is a ski bum who had one hot streak and is just making hay while the sun shines. Crazy like a fox. Now he can go home and participate in the really important event; counting and folding.
Nike, on the other hand, just invested a kazillion dollars in a multimedia, all-out ad campaign centred around a spokesman who ending up winning exactly the same number of Olympic medals in Turin as I did.
I don’t see any indication that Bode was clueless. He got a free ride to Turin, big bucks from Nike, and had a fun time. Now he has gone home with no regrets.
What clue do you think he missed? He had an awesome [time partying at] the Olympics. (In context, his “I rocked” statement was clearly a declaration that “I partied hearty,” NOT a claim that “I rocked [the Olympics].”)
In your role of professional iconoclast, you should be celebrating Bode, not (rather unsuccessfully) scowling him down.
Yeah, it’s hard to blame Bode that NBC played him every 20 minutes before he started losing.
And based on the coverage, he skied about his typical. He was known for very hot/cold performance and he showed that. Heck, but for a minor mistake on one of the slaloms where he hooked a gate he would have medalled. And in one of the other ones he gave a good performance and came in something like a close 4th. 4th in the Olympics against world class competition is not something to downgrade.
The coverage I hear now is “Whaaaa! He wasn’t a superman after all, but just a normal really good skiier! What a poser!” Cry me a river Nike.