Second Overall World Cup title for Bode Miller

Patrick Lang 16.03.2008 14:57 Uhr

With the Nations Team Events cancelled due to rain and foggy weather over the Stelvio course, the FIS 2008 World Cup Grand Finals in Bormio were officially closed by the Overall World Cups Awards Ceremonies. For the first time in 25 years, both Crystal Globes were awarded to U.S. skiers, Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller. In 1983, Tamara McKinney and Phil Mahre grabbed the two big Globes at the Finals at Furano.

It's the second triumph of Bode in that competition after his succes in 2005. This year the American all-rounder won the coveted trophy at his first attempt since running as an independent for "Team America".

The skier from New Hampshire was pleased by his season even though he was hoping to also capture the downhill title at Bormio after his great results in Norway last week. In past years, Bode already said that he still has several big
goals to reach prior ending his career - including winning World Cup titles in all events, over 14 races in one season or scoring more than 2,500 World Cup points during the same winter.

For the moment he was mostly proud to have achieved a good season after splitting from the US team last spring.

"Obviously I'm excited about going on my own, breaking away, doing new things and having success with that. But the end of the season was a little bit of a let down. Just the Finals, though. Before that I came out of Norway obviously feeling great and racing hard. That was for me a really positive finish to a really positive season."

"I think this year we sort of set down the group. I was really happy, because the coaches saw what they achieved. I think we also did some really great things. We have to sit down and appreciate that. We're looking forward and we'll see what's going to happen next year."

"Obviously in the Super-combined slalom, I was really tough this year, and that was a huge step forward. I still did not ever really find the speed and the competitive that I had in the past, but I think that's obviously a work in progress. I'm not too disappointed with the results, it just was I seemed to finally find the flow in those tech events."

" The Finals were really kind of a letdown for a lot of people. The downhill obviously was shaping up to look really positive and a really cool finish for the season. To get that canceled, it hit everyone. For me, I came in here and I knew I had to do a couple of things and I would win the Overall. I didn't do much, but I did enough."

" For me, just like for most of the guys out there, it doesn't really matter so much about World Championships or Olympics. I mean, when those events are there, they become a focus for the mid-late part of February but there's no
one changing that much earlier on in the middle of the season based around that. This year was not different, so we just trained hard all year and if the World Championship had fit in there, it would have made no difference."

" I think the Overall title represents a whole season of work. You don't win it by chance, it's always the best guy over the season. I think it's a great achievement, there's a lot of guys who ski well out there. I'm definitely excited about that."

"Our group was aiming for more at the start of the season, such as also winning in Super-G and giant slalom, but at the end of the day it went fine."

"It's cool to see that two American can take the two Overall titles away from the Europeans but I don't think it will be big news in the US right now."

"For the moment I don't know too much about my future, I'll see later on this spring."

In case he continues racing on the World Cup tour, Bode will have to put together another group of trainers after some of them decided to step down. John McBride, his head coach, wants to dedicate more time to his family and his three kids as Mike Kenney, Bode's uncle and first ski coach.

"It's obviously a concern of mine for next season if I continue to race, which is still up in the air on its own,"
Miller said in a recent interview to the New York Time. "But with the right program in place, I think it would be a great opportunity for me to race further."

One can bet that Bode will be at the start of the next World Cup race planned in seven months at Soelden !