World Cup champion Bode Miller, a five-event racer on the U.S. Ski Team, reports regularly from the tour for The Denver Post. He figures to be a medal contender in all men’s alpine events at the Turin Olympics.
Alta Badia, Italy – It was another tough weekend with the weather. It was a drag to have that be an issue again. I’ve been waiting for one race where the weather was nice, where you could control your own destiny, because it’s easier for me to get motivated and put in some energy.
Friday’s super-G was overcast with flat light (I was eighth). There was snow, fog and wind for Saturday’s downhill in Val Gardena (eighth again), which delayed the start.
That hill in Val Gardena has never been a great hill for me anyway. We all kind of went in there with the attitude of just doing whatever we could do and taking what we got. We battled, but we came out without much.
The downhill was stopped after 39 racers because of the weather, but they still called it a full race, which is a strange rule. It had been getting significantly worse from the start of the race, so it became an unfair race long before they stopped it. When I went, there were very strong winds, 30 mph gusts straight up the hill. If you got hit by one of those, that was the end of your race. You can ski amazingly well, but if you get hit by a 30 mph gust you’re going nowhere.
We did get some nice results from Scott Macartney, who had his best career results in super-G (seventh) and downhill (11th). He’s an exceptionally well-conditioned athlete, by far the strongest we’ve had on the team. He is phenomenally strong for his weight and size. There’s not a lot of technical difficulty on the Val Gardena course, and I think he feels comfortable now after coming back from some injuries.
He skied in a way he hasn’t shown in competition in a long time, maybe ever. I’ve been saying for a long time that some of our guys ski a lot better in training than they do in races, and Macartney is one of those guys. He finally skied in a race the way I’ve seen him ski in training.
Because of the Christmas holiday, our races this week (giant slalom and slalom) are on Wednesday and Thursday in Kransjka Gora, Slovenia. It’s usually a good hill for me in GS – I’ve won there twice – but it’s a pretty brutal hill. You’re always on the ragged edge a little bit, visibility is usually crummy, and conditions are going to be chunky because they’ve had a lot of snow.
I’m going to go in there and hammer. Last year I came out of there with zero points, so hopefully I can do better this year.
