Bode Miller pleased with 2nd place but not with his race

Patrick Lang 19.01.2008 18:36 Uhr

Six days after his most recent triumph at Wengen and three weeks after his success at Bormio, Bode Miller was very close to win his third consecutive downhill today at Kitzbühel and be the first racer in a long time to capture the two major “Classics” within a few weeks, yet a major mistake in the upper part of the demanding “Streif” prevented him to achieve that impressive performance. So far, no racer managed to win those three demanding races during the same season.

At the exit of the steep and icy “Steilhang” turn, Miller could not remain on the fastest line and had to ski for as few seconds on the plastic banners placed at the bottom of the safety nets to avoid a painful crash.

“That turn is a real key part because you’re on the flats for 30 seconds after that,” he explained afterwards at the post-race press conference. “I made a great turn around the “Steilhang”, and would have come out onto the road with a very high speed,” he added. “I accelerated through the turn exactly how I wanted to, but when I went off the last little roll, the light was kind of flat, and I couldn’t really see my landing, but there’s a pretty big bump at the end of that turn and it just kicked me a little bit outside.”

“And I was leaning the wrong way, and I had to decide if I was going to hit the fence with my upper body or my skis. So as I went on it with one ski, it immediately started to catch really bad, and decelerated and would have pulled me headfirst into the fence, so I had to balance to make it. It’s sort of the thing I am always trying to do, trying to not hurt myself out there, and I had to get my other foot on the fence too. The plastic from the fence melts onto your skis. I slowed down a lot just on the fence, but it ruins your skis for the rest of the run.”

The quadruple World Champion was obviously frustrated by his mistakes which cost him a huge amount of time and another victory. “It’s bad management right there, an operational error on my part,” he also told the press. “I continued to push after that. Sometimes you gotta make the best mistakes!”

The skier from New Hampshire could cope with his final result at the end. “In general it’s always good to be second, especially here, it feels great, but the skiing wasn’t what I was hoping for.”

Bode also commented the courses conditions in Kitzbühel and the crash from his former teammate Scott Macartney. He was very unhappy with that accident. “Already this morning during the inspection I was really upset when I got down to that jump. They try to make this course spectacular, and I think it’s just not fair. They act like they need to pump-up the course or make it bumpier, or make the jumps different. But it’s people’s lives that are at stake there. That jump is completely dysfunctional.”

“Where the takeoff was this morning had six inches of groomed loose snow on it, and you knew that stuff wasn’t going to stay there. They changed it three times during the three training runs. It’s just not the way to manage a downhill where guys can easily get hurt or get killed. The people who make those decisions aren’t running the course; we’re the ones running the course and we don’t have any say in it.”

“That’s really frustrating. It put me in a rally bad mood, first thing in the morning, and then on top of earlier this week to see the forerunners that they were sending down the course, you see little young kids going off the last jump and hurting themselves is just a bummer, you don’t want to see that.”

“And then to have one of my close friends go off it and knock himself out and be convulsing on the snow, that’s not the kind of stuff you want to see before you have to run the course. It puts you in a bad state of mind.”

“You don’t expect the organizers to try to make the course bumpier or tougher than the hill is. There’s no reason to do that. We’re going to be pushing the limits of what the course provides, we’re going to make it on the edge anyways because that’s how you go the fastest. Like a course like this, that’s known as dangerous and that’s known to have sections that are unforgiving and sections where you crash that you’re going straight into the fence, and to make it worse just to make it spectacular, I think that’s irresponsible and just bad form.”

Bode won the prestigious Hahnenkamm combined in 2004 and he knows that victory in downhill needs solid and good skiing. “Being second in a World Cup is always great. But I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again, being second when I ski in a way that I’m not inspired by, that is below the level that I’m skiing at, doesn’t do much for me. My skis are great right now and there’s a few sections of each one of these courses that even if I don’t ski my very best I tend to make up time on guys either because I’m big or how I turn.”

“The way that I skied today is far below what I’m capable of, which is frustrating for a big event where you build up to it and you’re totally excited and I expect to get the best out of my self. And if I can’t get the best out of myself, I at least expect to be pushing really hard.”

“I can say that I did push hard, but the way that I came out of the start all the way down to the exit of the “Steilhang”, my head wasn’t really in it. Until I made that really crappy turn on the carousel and bounced really low, that kind of woke me up. Whether it was Macartney or whatever, it seemed like I wasn’t really involved.”

He was also asked his opinion on the winner of the day – Didier Cuche. “I have said it a lot of different times about Didier, he is an incredibly well-balanced downhiller, I said it before he switched to Head, that it was frustrating for me to see him go through his career without winning downhill or Super-G titles, even being in the chase for giant slalom title.”

“On the big turns, he is as technically sound as anybody, on the gliding he is as fast as anybody except maybe Michael Walchhofer, and in the air he’s better than everybody else in the World Cup. You put those things together, you’d expect to see someone winning all the time. And now that he’s on the best skis out there, he’s as tough as anybody. I just need to keep off the fence and I’ll give him a run or his money.”

In Sunday’s slalom, Bode will for sure fight again for victory in both the race and the combined ! He has a lead of over a second and a half on Benjamin Raich, 14th at 1,81 seconds from the winner. Another exciting competition can be expected.