Why Bode Miller Mattered

[cali]

Yes, his behavior is often repugnant and his crap over the custody of his son, is disgusting, but if you've ever been a passionate skier or fan of the sport, he was really something as a racer.

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In fact, take a good look at that results list—at the way Bode slaloms between good results and bad ones. Without knowing much about the sport, you can almost visualize the style of a skier like that. We're talking about a guy who, in any given race, was as likely to win a medal as he was to slide out of a course or crash. No, really. In 19 Olympic races, starting with Nagano in 1998, he medaled six times and DNF'd six times. He was also disqualified from a seventh race, the combined in the 2006 Turin Games; in classic Bode style, he was in first place after the downhill, but hooked a ski in the slalom.

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Sometimes, it turned into a showcase for a ridiculous recovery—like when he took down a panel in a super-G race in Turin in 2006, wound up with his left foot and left ski twisted behind him and facing uphill, and still managed to bring that 200 cm-or-so ski back where it should've been—all while still going downhill at some 50 or 60 mph.

His unpredictability wasn't just the result of his aggression, though. It was also a matter of his unique, weight-in-the-backseat, arms-flailing-around form. It's the kind that would be called "creative" if you wanted to be flattering, or "insane" or "ugly" if you didn't. It's also the kind of form that requires the racer to be ridiculously strong if it's going to have even a smidgen of a chance of working.

Don't believe me? Do a little experiment here: Try standing just in your shoes in an aggressive athlete's position—hands forward, upper body still, weight toward the balls of your feet. Then try dropping some weight into your booty instead and throwing your arms out. For extra credit, at the same time, try throwing your knees from side to side as far as you can—far enough that only the edge of your foot is still on the floor, creating the "angulation" that, if you were on skis and snow, would be driving the edge of your ski into the hill. And for extra extra credit, have a buddy try to pull you down after you've assumed each of these two different positions. Ideally, the buddy should weigh five times as much as you do. (The average World Cup racer pulls about 5 G's on a turn, meaning he feels the pressure of five times his body weight. And on some turns, Bode himself has actually pulled 12 G's

Then imagine that difference in form… on skis… going over ice, bumps, and ruts... at 50 to 90 mph. You start to get why Bode's style takes particular—scratch that, superhuman—strength.

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lots of unbelievable vids at link:

http://deadspin.com/why-bode-miller-mattered-1528654746

[joeybee12]

1. And he talked about how awful Russia's treatment of gays is...

prior to heading to Sochi.