Miller time for a reluctant poster boy

BODE MILLER wanted out. He felt trapped, like he was being forced to be something he had never asked to be: an All-American poster boy, a bang on the drum, red, white and blue, God Bless America branded piece of Olympic propaganda.

That was not Miller. He was not a guy looking to land on a cereal box. If anything, he was an anti-poster boy – a Bart Simpson on two planks – a wild kid from the New Hampshire woods searching for a perfect line down a mountainside, and just yearning to be free. There was all that, plus Miller liked to stay out late and party. Life, for Bode, was about having a good time.

In the Book of Bode, Olympic medals did not matter much. Winning was just the result, and the true joy – the adrenaline rush – was in the act of getting across the line. And by the time Miller got to Turin in 2006 he felt like a man in chains, a prisoner of all the hype, and the country vs. country podium lust that attends every Olympics.

“As [Turin] got closer and closer, I felt more and more trapped by what everyone else was saying,” Miller said this week in Whistler. “Too many people had said, ‘Oh, he’s going to win these medals,’ and, ‘This is the way he skis,’ and, ‘This is who he is, and this is how he acts.’ “When everyone says that about you for that long – to millions and millions of people – you don’t feel like you have ownership of your own actions anymore.”

So Miller, the reluctant poster boy, embraced his inner anarchist. He staged a revolt, heading off to Turin with a head that was never entirely there. Expected to win five medals, the then reigning World Cup champion failed to finish two races, was disqualified in a third and a non-factor through and through, unless you count a championship performance on the Italian bar scene.

“It’s been an awesome two weeks,” Miller said, once the Games were done. “I got to party and socialise at an Olympic level.”

And there was also this: “I just did it my way. I’m not a martyr, I’m not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here.”

Miller sounded like a jackass, and looked like an adolescent buffoon. Worse than that: he was an embarrassment to his country. The poster boy was ripped to shreds by the American press for what he didn’t do – and what he did – and then cast aside, as Olympians are between Olympics.

Four years later Miller is back, and rocking again. Only the tune is different this time. Gone is the pounding pulse of the Italian nightclubs, replaced by the strains of the Star Spangled Banner being piped over a sound system at the Whistler medals plaza on a perfect night.

“It’s hard to really describe it in a way that makes sense, but the gold medal [itself] doesn’t mean that much,” Miller had said, several hours earlier, after capturing top prize in the men’s super-combined. “If I won it in a way that I wasn’t excited about, or wasn’t proud of [Sunday], I would have probably resented the medal in a certain way.”

Part petulant child, part libertarian, Miller wants to ski free – and be fast – or flop trying. Anything less is a win he does not want. (The 32-year-old has crashed in about 40% of his 400 World Cup races). See, hurtling down a hill is not simply a sport for Miller. It is an art form, a philosophy, a higher calling.

And in the super-combined he was at his best.

“I skied with 100% heart,” Miller said. “I didn’t hold anything back.”

The gold was Miller’s third medal of the Games, rounding out the collection he started with a bronze in the downhill and silver in the Super-G. Toss in the pair of silvers Miller won in Salt Lake in 2002, and his personal medal count is at five, with two events left to go.

“It’s going to be hard for me go keep doing this,” he said. “This is incredibly emotionally exhausting.”

Four years ago, Miller was tired, too. Tired of the expectations, tired of being something he never asked to be. He did not want to be a poster boy in 2006, and in 2010, he almost did not want to ski at all. Retirement beckoned, but the mountains called him back. Now he is back, one medal away from becoming the most decorated alpine skier at a single Games – and the second most decorated of all time.

“I think this has been an inspiring Olympics,” Miller says. “Here, you really get the chills. You feel the crowd. You feel all the energy. You feel all the expectation – you feel everything.”

You feel like Bode Miller’s Olympic moment has finally arrived. Just don’t try and put it on a poster.