What do you mean, prepare?

Dude, get me an oat soda

Only Medal For Bode Is Fool's Gold

By Sally Jenkins
Sunday, February 26, 2006; Page E01

SESTRIERE, Italy For weeks now Nike has advised us to "Join Bode." Join him where? At the bar? That's one place you might find Bode Miller after the Turin Games, unless he's in his motor home, finding new ways to duck all that pressure he put on himself.

Miller is the biggest disappointment in the Winter Olympics, not because of the way he skied the mountain, but the way he acted at the bottom of it. The fact that he didn't win a medal at these Games, going 0 for 5 in the Alpine events, is beside the point. It's not the winning, it's the trying. The point is that he acted like he didn't try, and didn't care. Failing is forgivable. Getting fatter on beer while you're here is not.

If there has been a weaker performance by an American athlete on the international stage than that of Miller, I'm hard-pressed to think of one. To hear Miller tell it, he spent more time in Sestriere's nightclubs than he did in actual competition, which amounted to less than eight minutes. Miller's final Olympic event, the slalom, lasted all of 16 seconds. He bulled out of the start house, did a couple of quick scrimshaw turns, and promptly straddled a gate.

But, but we need a hero to sell shit with.
BODE MILLER: He's the biggest bust in Olympic history

Gwen Knapp

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sestriere, Italy -- Bode Miller got it right a long time ago. He said he might not come to these Olympics, and he never really did.

The phrases Miller heard most in the Turin Games were "Did Not Finish'' and whatever means "last call'' in Italian.

He skidded to the side of the slalom course Saturday after straddling an early gate in his first run, and his Alpine misadventure was over. Miller completed just two of his five races here, taking a fifth place and a sixth.

The messy snow on the slalom course upended a lot of good skiers, but Miller looked sloppy and uncertain on the first inch out of the starting gate. He followed a route off the hill that allowed him to avoid reporters at the bottom, but an Associated Press reporter eventually found him and then filed an account loaded with obnoxious, defensive bunk.

"I just did it my way. I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here,'' Miller was quoted by Jim Litke as saying. "... It's been an awesome two weeks. I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level."

Yeah, I got to hang out in Turin.

Maybe he should have caught a Juventus game. It would have required more effort than he showed on the slopes.

I love the naivety of these reporters.

Why did he go along with the hype?

MONEY.

So what does he do whne it gets too much? Revert to being a ski bum.

What did he think came with money? Privacy? You think Lance Johnson Armstrong wanted people in his marriage? Well, that's what he got. You want to be a famous athlete, you got to deal with the outcome of fame. And with hype comes expectations. You don't want the hype, don't feed the expectations.

I think Lance Johnson is a football player.

posted by Steve @ 8:42:00 AM