Bode Miller : biography
2006 season
Despite the hype surrounding Miller prior to the 2006 Winter Olympics, every one of Miller’s five medal bids in the Turin Games fell short: he finished a disappointing 5th in the Downhill, was disqualified – while in first place at the time – during the second leg of the Combined event, received a DNF (Did Not Finish) in the Super G, tied for 6th in the giant slalom, and claimed another DNF after missing a gate in the Slalom. Nevertheless, Miller won two races during the season (a giant slalom and a Super G) and placed third for the season’s overall World Cup title. At the 2006 U.S. National Championships following the World Cup season, Miller won the downhill and giant slalom titles. He switched to Head skis following the season’s completion. Miller had prolotherapy treatments to the ligaments in his knee or knees in February 2006, along with other ski team members, Bryon Friedman and Eric Schlopy.
2007 season
Bode Miller had 4 first place finishes (two downhills and two Super Gs) in the early going of the 2007 World Cup. For the season, Miller finished 4th overall and won the Super G title. On May 12, 2007, Miller announced that he was leaving the U.S. Ski Team. He followed the precedent set by slalom skier Kristina Koznick, who left the U.S. Ski Team following the 2000 season and raced the next six years for the U.S. as an independent.
2008 season
Bode Miller clinched his second overall championship at the World Cup finals in Bormio, Italy. Miller missed a chance to also win the season’s downhill title when bad weather prevented the season’s last race from being run. Miller got his first win of the season at the Stelvio downhill in Bormio in December. On January 13, Miller won for the second year in a row the legendary Wengen downhill, matching Phil Mahre as the most successful American skier with 27 World Cup victories. On January 20, he broke this record by winning the Hahnenkamm combined event at Kitzbühel. On January 27, he won the first super combined in his career in Chamonix and took the lead in the World Cup standings. On February 3, he won the super combined in Val d’Isère, France, and took the combined title. On March 1, Bode got his sixth win of the season at Kvitfjell, Norway, cementing his lead in the overall standings and closing to 5 points on Didier Cuche in downhill. At the end of this impressive season he was crowned overall champion.
2009 season
Miller responded to his World Cup success in 2008 with the worst season of his professional career, leading some to speculate that he may be "burned out."Tony Chamberlain, , Boston Globe, February 26, 2009. Miller failed to win a race for the first time in eight years and had only two official podium finishes, both seconds in downhill, to show for his season. Miller suffered a torn ligament in his left ankle in a December fall at Beaver Creek, which may have been a factor in his performance. He took a four-week break from competition in February and March, the first World Cup races that he had failed to start in three years, and missed the end of the World Cup season, although he still had a chance to win the season’s downhill title., CNN.com, March 4, 2009. He said that "the fire goes away after a while", and he hinted at retirement.
2010 season
After returning to the U.S. Ski Team, Miller missed much of the early part of the 2010 season due to an ankle sprain during a volleyball game with other members of the team. However, he returned by winning a World Cup super-combined event in Wengen on January 15, 2010, for his first victory in nearly two years.
He made the US team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in late 2009, and he was selected to ski in all five events despite his lack of training. In his first race, after several delays due to warm weather and poor snow conditions, Miller won a bronze medal in the Vancouver Olympics downhill, the first American on the downhill Olympic podium since Tommy Moe in 1994. Miller’s bronze medal time was 1:54.40, nine hundredths of a second behind gold medalist Didier Défago, and two hundredths behind Aksel Lund Svindal, who took the silver; the time difference between the gold and bronze medals was the smallest in Olympic downhill history. He then won a silver in the Super G, giving him four Olympic medals, more than any other American Alpine skier. On February 21, 2010, he won his first Olympic gold medal in the super combined. After the downhill portion of the race, Miller was in seventh place, but finished the slalom portion third overall, giving him a total time of 2:44.92 to win the combined. However, Miller then failed to finish either the giant slalom or slalom, and he took the rest of the season off due to continuing problems with his ankle injury.