Bode Miller press conference after World Championship super G win

Bode Miller press conference after World Championship super G winBode Miller won the first race of the 2005 alpine world championships, a super G, with a mistake-filled run. Click here for the story. Coming into the race as the only racer to have competed in every single World Cup race this season, he was facing speculation that his ability to win was waning mid-season (Miller won six of the first ten World Cups, but hasn’t won since December 13). But Miller has said all along that what’s missing is not stamina but only the opportunity to train.

Question: Bode, give us some comments on your winning run.
Bode Miller: ‘I lost my pole out of the start and kind of stumbled a little bit that’s usually not a good sign for me. I like to be really smooth out of the start, that’s why I start the way I do. I felt like I skied really aggressive and felt like I made it pretty much past all the hard parts. And then I went off the San Pietro jump going the wrong way missed my direction a little bit. And I had to get on the ski really hard two turns in a row just before that flat section and I know from the downhill just how much time you can loose across the little flat. And I thought with that mistake where it was that I didn’t stand a chance of winning. But still, I was really happy with the way I skied from there to the finish I skied as well as I can possibly ski I was super aggressive cutting off the line, but still when I crossed the line I didn’t think I had a chance to win. If anything, I thought there’d be little chance I’d be on the podium, but sometimes it just works out that way.’

Question: Are you losing energy by entering all of these races?
Miller: You guys have to understand that what you think isn’t necessarily the truth. It wasn’t that I was losing energy to win races; it’s just that I was making mistakes in some places for instance in Val Gardena there was a huge amount of wind. In Kitz I crashed in the slalom and they didn’t have the downhill so I didn’t go very well there, but it had nothing to do with losing energy. It’s just ski racing there are so many guys who are skiing so fast. If you want to win you have to take risks and push the limit and then you make mistakes sometime. The energy levels have been pretty good actually. It’s been one of my goals this season to start every race in a mindset and physical state that I can win. And I’ve doing this pretty consistently all year.’

Question: Why did you go off the line after the San Pietro jump?
Miller: For me, in hindsight, I would have liked to be on line. Michael (Walchhofer) was seven kilometers faster than me across that flat. And that was one of the sections that really looked good for me but I lost speed. Once I made that correction and got back in the course, I skied really direct all the way into the next split time. I take steps on a course like this the World Championships to take as much risk as you feel comfortable doing. And that’s an area I feel really comfortable taking risks, cutting off the line and counting on my ability to make recoveries. I got away with it today. But in hindsight, it wouldn’t have cost either one of us (Raich and Miller) to stay with the right ski a little longer and get on the left ski a little earlier it’s just a tiny bit of line and a tiny bit of speed, but you get it back a lot more coming off that pitch. This was a tactical error rather than trying to cut off the line.’

Question: How would you categorize the difficulty of this course?
Miller: Today was one of the most easy super Gs we’ve run because of the snow conditions. The snow conditions were phenomenal and exceptionally grippy, so if you made a mistake like Benny and I made, you could just get back in the course. If you ran that line (across the traverse) the way conditions usually are for the downhill, you’d be in the fence. Instead they’re coming around perfect right on line. You could set the ski way on edge and get good response. This hill’s really bumpy but when the later guys came, who’ve run a lot of downhill here, it looked more and more smooth. That’s because we know we have to get to the front of the ski. So it was the easiest super G you could possibly set on this hill and easier than most of the ones we’ve run this year.

Question: What’s the meaning of this victory and what position would you put it in?
Miller: That’s another one of those things that you guys have to make sure you understand. We don’t say ‘ahh, this medal goes in third place.’ It’s not something we athletes have to do. It’s a luxury to have a great day and reflect on the skiing and then move on. It’s a World Championship title and sometime you win with good skiing and sometimes you win with bad skiing; for me it was a mixture – one big mistake and then good skiing. Super G is an important race for me because it challenges me more that other races do. No training runs, only one inspection, high speeds, big jumps with no margin for error. So in that sense if you want me to categorize it I’d say it’s number four.

Question: It seemed to take a long time to get out of drug testing, what was going on.
Miller: I have a pretty good system for going through the drug testing normally I drink a lot, I generally don’t eat before I race, so I have to go to the bathroom really often, but I don’t go before I race, so when I come down, and I go right to drug testing, I don’t have to wait around more than five minutes. Some guys have to sit there and wait for an hour and a half. So unfortunately there was a bit more of a process in the finish area today, so it threw off my system a little bit.’

Question: Did you get course reports?
Miller: I watched on TV a bit, but I don’t know, it really didn’t help me out much at all. The camera angles are always really deceiving. We all looked at the course this morning and all three of us have skied well in super G before. We’re really used to trusting our judgment. If something really jumps out at you, like four or five guys making the same mistake or something, that might send out a warning flag. On this course today there was nothing that really popped out at you. We were able to race it pretty aggressively today.’