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Miller wins Super Combined - 2010/01/18 16:39
Bode Miller has limped his way back to the
top of the podium.
With less than a month to go before the
Winter Games begin in Vancouver, Miller
won a prestigious World Cup race Friday in
Wengen, Switzerland, his first victory of the
season on skiing's grueling World Cup
circuit.
Skiing on an injured ankle, Miller was
dominant in a run of high-speed downhill
and just agile enough in a slalom sprint to
finish the race with a combined time of 2
minutes, 35.96 seconds - beating the
Swiss sensation Carlo Janka by 0.37
seconds.
American Ted Ligety, the reigning Olympic
champion in combined, was fifth.
Miller injured his ankle in December
playing volleyball with teammates in Val
d'Isere, France. He has been skiing his way
back into shape, and scrambling to fine-
tune his equipment, since rejoining the U.S.
Ski Team in the fall after flirting with
retirement.
"The main thing right now is to make my
ankle injury as strong as it can be and
make the equipment 100 percent in all the
events," Miller told reporters during a post-
race press conference.
In an interview with the Daily News the day
before the race, ski racing legend Picabo
Street – now a mother of three living in
Alabama – said Miller was ready to pounce.
"He's at a place where he could win and
dominate again at any time," Street said.
"That's the thing that's the coolest about
Bode that makes me smile."
On Saturday, Miller is expected to
challenge for the win in the 80th annual
running of the famed Lauberhorn downhill,
which he has won twice, in 2007 and
2008. It is the longest race on the circuit,
with quirky features like a tunnel, steep
dropoffs, and a straightaway where racers
commonly exceed 95 miles per hour.
"It's an easy hill to be excited about racing,"
Miller said. "It has all the different parts. It's
really a classic."
Miller said he was glad to have seen the
Lauberhorn course 10 years ago, because
organizers have steadily adjusted it to
make it safer.
"I think each year they take away some of
the teeth of these downhills," Miller said.
Miller is the best American of all time on
the World Cup circuit, with 32 victories
spread across all five disciplines. That
makes him seventh on the sport's all-time
list.
The U.S. Ski Team boasts the top-ranked
and most versatile skier on the women's
side of the circuit as well in Lindsey Vonn,
who will compete in giant slalom and
slalom races this weekend in Maribor,
Slovenia. Vonn has 28 World Cup wins, six
of them this season.
While passing through New York City in
December, Miller said he was happy that
Vonn was capturing the public's attention
during the lead-up to the Winter Games,
allowing him to fly under the radar this time
around.
"She's just got a great attitude about the
sport and Olympics in general," Miller said
that day. "As we know, going into the
Olympics, I was conflicted. I wasn't feeling
great about where I was. That's not the
kind of person you want to have as your
poster boy for that."
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