TORINO: Alpine: Bode Miller wins downhill portion of combined wearing new skis

TORINO: Alpine: Bode Miller wins downhill portion of combined wearing new skisSESTRIERE, Italy – Wearing the capped skis that he brought out in the Olympic men’s downhill on Sunday and that he damaged in that run, forcing his technicians to shave down the edge to paper-thin levels, Bode Miller of the United States was the fastest man through the downhill portion of the Olympic combined on Tuesday.

“I will go back to my motor home, eat and change equipment,” said Miller. “I will go down from two-meter skis to 165. This is a busy day.”

Miller’s servicemen repaired the capped skis by shaving the edge down to super-thin levels. They say Miller hit a rock on the lower part of Sunday’s downhill, causing him to lose grip. Other racers reported similar incidents.

Miller led Didier Defago of Switzerland by 32-hundredths of a second. Defago was disqualified for an equipment violation after winning a combined race in December. That DQ bumped Miller onto the podium of that race.

Peter Fill of Italy was third (0.86 behind Miller), generating some much-needed emotion in the Borgata finish area.

Scott Macartney and Steve Nyman were 10th and 11th (1.70 and 1.83 behind Miller, respectively). Ted Ligety flashed his bases at the cameras off a few of the jumps, and his backseat antics cost him; he finished 32nd, 3.06 seconds behind Miller.

There were 60 men on the start list, which is a record for Olympic combined, according to FIS race director Guenter Hujara. But quantity is not quality, as a series of crashes proved once again the combined brings out racers not accustomed to serious downhills.

The air warmed up Tuesday compared to the last week, but U.S. team coaches say the snow did not get noticeably softer. Miller’s late start position (32nd) was a disadvantage, however, in the fact that Benni Raich of Austria — who was just 13th in the run — had left the arena and was on his way to slalom warm-up well before Miller even took his coat off at the top.

The race was held up for about 15 minutes following a crash by Filip Trejbal, the Czech Republic’s 21-year-old world junior champion in slalom. Trejbal lost contact with the snow on the velodrome sidehill at the bottom of the course and cartwheeled across the top of the B-netting before sliding back into the race arena.

The men will race two legs of slalom later today with the first run at 5 p.m. local time and the second run at 7:30 p.m.

Trejbal actually bounced his helmet right off his head, revealing the long hair and double-strand beard that make him the only Goth-looking guy on the World Cup circuit (certain journalists excluded).

Trejbal also shattered his ski. Phil McNichol, the U.S. team coach standing nearby, said it was held together with nothing but the topsheet graphics.

Australia’s Jono Brauer also took a digger into the nets after landing ‘the Spine’ a roller that runs at a 45-degree angle through a corridor midway down the course.

Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway, the defending gold-medal winner in the event, was on the start list but pulled out just before his start because he was not confident in his knee, which he injured in Sunday’s men’s Olympic downhill.

On Monday night, his coach said Aamodt’s eagerness to race despite a strained ligament was ‘crazy’.

Aamodt’s young teammate and protégé Aksel Lund Svindal was fastest through the previous day’s training run, which many athletes skipped to rest and train. Svindal jokingly told Ski Racing that he was considering moving the United States because he had recently been voted by Ski Racing readers as being one of the World Cup athletes with the most sex appeal.

There have been four men’s combined races this season on the FIS World Cup. The first was at Val d’Isere on Dec. 11, where Defago was disqualified. The second race was a super combi at Wengen on Jan. 13 and the third was a paper combined that was part of the Kitzbuehel weekend. Finally, there was a super combi two weeks ago at Chamonix.