Bode Miller

Miller first gained widespread recognition after winning two silver medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in the giant slalom and combined events, though he had been known to skiing fans since he burst onto the international scene as an 18-year-old in 1996. Miller is known for his reckless style, often risking crashes to increase his chances of winning a given race; in his book, Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun, Miller stated that his goal as a skier was not to win medals, but rather to ski "as fast as the natural universe will allow." In 2006, Miller also became famous for his reclusive (but outspoken) personality and his attention-getting statements.

Miller not only first appeared in the World Cup during the 1998 season but also represented the United States in the 1998 Nagano Olympics, competing in both of the technical disciplines (giant slalom and slalom). In 1999, he also competed in super-G (which is considered a speed discipline, not a technical one) and represented the U.S. in all three events at the World Ski Championships at Beaver Creek, with a best finish of 8th in slalom. He finally achieved a podium in a giant slalom at Val d'Isère on December 17, 2000 (placing third), but then only competed in super-G at the 2001 World Ski Championships; he crashed during the downhill portion of the combined and tore knee ligaments, which ended his competition.

During this season, Miller began regularly competing in downhill, making him a five-event skier on the World Cup circuit, although he was still considered a technical specialist. Miller won his first World Cup race on December 29, 2001, taking the giant slalom at Val-d'Isère, and then followed it up the next day with another win in the slalom at Madonna di Campiglio. He would go on to win two more slalom races in January 2002, along with a pair of silver medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics in February, thus establishing himself as the top racer on the U.S. Ski Team.

In 2002, Miller won ABC Sports' Superstars competition, a televised event that pits athletes from different sports against one another in a series of athletic contests. In 2009, he competed in a Superstars team competition, which paired an athlete with a celebrity. Miller was paired with Paige Hemmis and they finished in second place.

In the 2004 season, Miller won World Cup titles in two disciplines: giant slalom and combined, but placed fourth in the competition for the overall title. He won six World Cup races: three giant slaloms, two combineds and one slalom. After the season, Miller switched to Atomic skis.

Miller won his first overall World Cup title in 2005, defeating Austrians Benjamin Raich and Hermann Maier. He made history early in the season by winning at least one race in each of the four standard World Cup disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, super-G and downhill. In winning a slalom in Sestriere on December 13, he joined Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, who had been the first man to accomplish this feat in 1989. Miller accomplished the feat in less time than any previous ski racer, male or female; the victory was his sixth of the season after only ten races. At the 2005 World Championships in Bormio, Italy, he won two gold medals, in super-G and downhill. In the downhill portion of the combined, he lost a ski 16 seconds into the race, but decided to continue down the course nevertheless at speeds up to 83 km/h on one ski, before sliding out near the bottom nearly two minutes later.

Miller's autobiography, Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun, co-written with his friend Jack McEnany, was published by Villard/Random House on October 18, 2005. Miller also became the first American alpine skier since Tommy Moe to endorse a video game when Bode Miller Alpine Racing was released for mobile phones on January 30, 2006, followed by Bode Miller Alpine Skiing for PlayStation 2 and Windows. In 2006 Miller was the subject of a biographical film produced by the Coruway Film Institute, Flying Downhill, which looks at the people and the place Miller comes from, and where exactly each fits within his philosophy.

Despite the hype surrounding Miller prior to the 2006 Winter Olympics, every one of Miller's five medal bids in the Turin Games fell short: he finished a disappointing 5th in the downhill, was disqualified – while in first place at the time – during the second leg of the combined event, failed to finish the super-G, tied for 6th in the giant slalom, and had another DNF after missing a gate in the first run of the slalom. Nevertheless, Miller won two races during the season (a giant slalom and a super-G) and placed third for the season's overall World Cup title. At the 2006 U.S. National Championships following the World Cup season, Miller won the downhill and giant slalom titles. He switched to Head skis following the season's completion. Miller had prolotherapy treatments, an alternative treatment that has shown no effect in clinical trials, to the ligaments in his knee or knees in February 2006, with other ski team members, Bryon Friedman and Eric Schlopy.

The good feeling generated by Miller's 2002 Olympic performance was quickly dissipated in 2006. On the program 60 Minutes, in January 2006, Miller described the act of skiing "wasted" and compared it to lawlessly driving while intoxicated. Throughout the Olympics, Miller said, "I'm just trying to ski in a way that's exciting for me." In an interview shortly after his last race, he said that it had "been an awesome two weeks," and that he "got to party and socialize at an Olympic level." After an unapologetic Miller interview with Tom Brokaw, Bob Costas concluded in a primetime editorial that Miller might finally get what he wanted: to be unceremoniously forgotten. Miller received negative coverage in the American and international media; editorials focused on his attitude of simply not caring about the Olympics or about his performance.

Miller has used a variety of skis during his World Cup career. He originally started off on K2 skis, then raced on Fischer through the 2002 season. He switched to Rossignol for two seasons (2003 and 2004), then Atomic for the following two (2005 and 2006). In June 2006, he moved over to Head, along with Hermann Maier of Austria and Didier Cuche of Switzerland.

On July 29, 2006, Miller signed a one-day contract to play baseball for the Nashua Pride (Canadian-American League). He went 0–2 with two strikeouts, however he did make an acrobatic catch in left field, which earned national attention by being featured by ESPN, among others. The team said it would donate at least $5,000 from ticket sales for the game to Miller's Turtle Ridge Foundation, which will give the money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Miller had four first-place finishes (two downhills and two super-Gs) in the early going of the 2007 World Cup. For the season, Miller finished 4th overall and won the super-G title. On May 12, 2007, Miller announced that he was leaving the U.S. Ski Team. He followed the precedent set by slalom skier Kristina Koznick, who left the U.S. Ski Team following the 2000 season and raced the next six years for the U.S. as an independent.

In May 2007, Miller left the US Ski Team and raced independently for his personally financed Team America for two seasons. This allowed him more control of his training, equipment, staff, and sponsors. With fewer distractions, increased autonomy, and responsibility, Miller improved his focus and won his second overall title. However, the next season (2009) was the worst of his career after he crashed hard in the Beaver Creek Downhill, injuring his heel, and Miller folded Team America at the end of 2009. Miller departed the 2009 season before its completion and rejoined the US Ski Team in October 2009.

On July 23, 2007, Miller again signed a one-day contract, to play the first three innings July 24, 2007, for the Nashua Pride, to raise money for charity.

In 2008 Miller clinched his second overall championship at the World Cup finals in Bormio, Italy. He missed a chance to also win the season's downhill title when bad weather prevented the season's last race from being run. Miller got his first win of the season at the Stelvio downhill in Bormio in December. On January 13, he won for the second year in a row the legendary Wengen downhill, matching Phil Mahre as the most successful American skier with 27 World Cup victories. On January 20, he broke this record by winning the Hahnenkamm combined event at Kitzbühel. On January 27, he won the first super combined in his career in Chamonix and took the lead in the World Cup standings. On February 3, he won the super combined in Val d'Isère, France, and took the combined title. On March 1, Bode got his sixth win of the season at Kvitfjell, Norway, cementing his lead in the overall standings and closing to 5 points on Didier Cuche in downhill. At the end of this impressive season he was crowned overall champion.

Miller responded to his World Cup success in 2008 with the worst season of his professional career, leading some to speculate that he might be "burned out." Miller failed to win a race for the first time in eight years and had only two official podium finishes, both seconds in downhill, to show for his season. Miller suffered a torn ligament in his left ankle in a December fall at Beaver Creek, which may have been a factor in his performance. He took a four-week break from competition in February and March, the first World Cup races that he had failed to start in three years, and missed the end of the World Cup season, although he still had a chance to win the season's downhill title. He said that "the fire goes away after a while", and he hinted at retirement.

He made the U.S. team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in late 2009 and was selected to compete in all five events, despite his lack of training. In his first race, after several delays due to warm weather and poor snow conditions, Miller won a bronze medal in the downhill, the first American to win an Olympic medal in downhill since Tommy Moe won gold in 1994. Miller's time was 1:54.40, nine hundredths of a second behind gold medalist Didier Défago, and two hundredths behind Aksel Lund Svindal, who took the silver; the time difference between the gold and bronze medals was the smallest in Olympic downhill history. He then won a silver in the super-G, giving him four Olympic medals, more than any other American alpine racer. On February 21, 2010, he won his first Olympic gold medal in the super combined. After the downhill portion of the race, Miller was in seventh place, but finished third in the slalom portion, giving him a total time of 2:44.92 to finish first overall. Miller then failed to finish both the giant slalom and the slalom, and took the rest of the season off due to continuing problems with his ankle injury.

According to John Canzano, Oregonian reporter, Miller is generally unpopular with American reporters who cover skiing. One referred to him in 2009 as "a tedious bore given to statements that smack of hypocrisy." Another said that Miller's behavior had alienated him from "pretty much everyone but those who mindlessly celebrate rebels simply for their rebellion, however misplaced it might be."

After returning to the U.S. Ski Team, Miller missed much of the early part of the 2010 season due to an ankle sprain which he suffered during a volleyball game with other members of the team. However, he returned by winning a World Cup super-combined event in Wengen on January 15, 2010, for his first victory in nearly two years.

Miller is one of the most successful alpine ski racers in Olympic history. He participated in five Winter Olympics, from 1998 through 2014. Miller had 19 starts in all five alpine disciplines and won six medals, including one gold in the super combined event in 2010. He is the only American ski racer in history to win medals at three different Olympics.

Miller's success in the 2010 Olympic Games has been contrasted with his 2006 results. Miller's explanation for his belated success was simple: "Most likely it’s because I decided that’s what I wanted to do." At the 2010 games, his coaches stated that he "helps inspire [them]," a very different attitude from that of four years previously. Miller himself said that the difference was that in 2006, his role as "poster boy" for the Olympics, after the corruption scandals associated with the 2002 Winter Olympics (bid scandal and figure skating scandal), was "the absolute thing I despise the most in the world" and "really draining on my inspiration, my level of passion." Ultimately, the publicity "had been happening for a year, and it was just too much." By contrast, in 2010, he noted that he was not so proud of the medals themselves but of the "absolutely amazing" feeling when "you ... magically ski at your absolute best." He ended the 2010 Olympic Games as the most successful American skier and athlete overall.

In April 2010, Miller opened the Boston Red Sox's baseball season by throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park.

On June 3, 2010, Miller competed for a spot in the 2010 US Open through the new national playoff system introduced by the USTA. The winner of the men's and women's playoff championships received a wild-card entry into the Open qualifying tournament. He lost 6–4, 6–2 to Erik Nelson-Kortland in an opening match at sectional playoffs in Hawaii.

Miller's younger brother Chelone was a snowboarder who competed in the 2010 Winter X Games in the Snowboard X event. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2005 dirt-bike crash and subsequently suffered from seizures, leading to his death in 2013 at age 29.

After undergoing a knee surgery in spring 2012, Miller decided not to rush his comeback to the slopes and announced in January 2013 that he would skip the entire season to ensure a completely healthy run for his fifth Olympics in 2014.

On October 7, 2012, Miller married professional beach volleyball player and model Morgan Beck. Their son, Edward Nash Skan Miller, was born in 2015, and daughter, Emeline "Emmy" Grier, was born in 2016. In April 2018, the couple announced that they were expecting their third child together. On June 10, 2018, 19-month old Emeline died after drowning in a swimming pool at a neighbor's house in Orange County, California. Their second son, Easton Vaughn Rek Miller, was born on October 5, 2018. On August 12, 2019, both Bode and Morgan announced they were expecting twin boys on NBC's Today Show. Bode spoke about how, when younger, he had a premonition that he would have twin boys. The twin boys were born November 8, 2019 and are named Asher and Aksel.

Miller began the Winter Olympics by winning two out of three training sessions before the downhill. However, as sunny conditions of the training days changed into a cloudy race day, he was not able to keep up the momentum and finished in eighth position. He was then unable to defend his title from the previous Olympic Games as he finished sixth in the super combined event. On February 16, 2014, Miller became the oldest Olympic medalist in alpine skiing history, by winning a bronze medal in the super-G race. He shared a third place podium with Jan Hudec of Canada. By collecting his sixth Olympic medal, Miller moved to the second position on the all-time list of Olympic male medalists in alpine skiing, only behind Kjetil André Aamodt who won eight medals. In his last race of the Olympics, Miller finished 20th in the giant slalom, won by U.S. teammate Ligety.

On November 17, 2014, Bode Miller announced that he would undergo outpatient back surgery to alleviate the pain and discomfort he had felt since the end of the previous season. After attending official trainings to the downhills in both Wengen and Kitzbühel, but skipping the races, Miller was trying to make a comeback for the 2015 World Championships held at Vail / Beaver Creek, Colorado. On February 5, he crashed during the super-G race, after catching a gate. During the crash his leg was cut by an edge of his ski and he suffered a torn hamstring tendon. The injury forced him to withdraw from the rest of the championships.

On October 31, 2017, Miller announced his retirement from competition. He was also inducted into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, Class of 2018.

Happy 40th birthday, Bode Miller!

Bode Miller, arguably the greatest male American alpine skier of all time, turns 40 today. To celebrate his career, here is a gallery of moments from his 40 years of racing, innovation, controversy and partying.