McKee's McThoughts: Miller breaks new ground

Bode Miller is a pioneer.
    Nature’s whims make ski racing, in the mountains and in winter, difficult. Global warming, the evidence says, will compound the difficulties. An already elitist sport is becoming even more elitist. That the season has progressed this far this well is a testament to FIS juggling abilities. How many more balls in the air can be handled is a serious question.
    We recently happened across a chunk of video of Toni Sailer on course. The sport of ski racing has come a long way. The differences bitch slap the viewer.
BODE MILLER IS A PIONEER.
    Nature’s whims make ski racing, in the mountains and in winter, difficult. Global warming, the evidence says, will compound the difficulties. An already elitist sport is becoming even more elitist. That the season has progressed this far this well is a testament to FIS juggling abilities. How many more balls in the air can be handled is a serious question.
    We recently happened across a chunk of video of Toni Sailer on course. The sport of ski racing has come a long way. The differences bitch slap the viewer.
    In the video clip, the track Sailer is skiing, a World Championships venue we believe, is roughly a ski length wide. There are people — coaches we presume — standing within a body length of the course. The course is rough, the conditions looking a lot like it was boot-packed by coaches and athletes. There is no room to bail out, the trail seemingly snaking between trees, around boulders and over drop-offs. Anything off the narrow-packed strip is fluffy. No fencing was apparent in the clip we viewed.
    By contrast, today’s World Cup racers, and those in any sanctioned race, ski on groomed boulevards, wide and smooth with plenty of room for escape. They are protected from the trees and rocks by A-netting and B-netting and there are plenty of regulations regarding who stands where, when, who gets on which side of which fence when.
    Safety has been a major focus of the international governing body, the FIS. There are faults with the FIS, most of them percolating from the manner and time in which the organization was formed. It is an old, huge, cumbersome organization encompassing a multitude of cultures, languages and attitudes. The sport it governs has changed much more than it, but as awkward as it can be to move into action, there are two areas in which the FIS reacts with speed: adapting to nature’s whims and safety.
    There is a joke about light bulbs and three old-timers in which the first holds the ladder, the second changes the bulb and the third discusses how much he liked the old bulb better. In some respects, those days of yesteryear have a certain likable quality to them. The sport was more simple, the attraction so pure.
    The boulevard courses of today are the best technology can provide. Winch cats clear a wide track, injected surfaces ensure a smooth, durable track fair to the final skier. Top-to-bottom communications and regulations keep racers and stationary skiers separated. Sure, there are still mishaps and they usually make headlines because they are so relatively rare and because they are so relatively severe. More common are the problems fostered by the whims of nature. Weather can render technology helpless. Ask the residents of New Orleans. Or ask Peter Fill, who tried to ski the Wengen slalom from the 30th start.
    The changes to the sport of skiing have come about incrementally, turn by turn. Much like the automobile industry, which faced similar enhancements to its playing fields, ski equipment manufacturers designed gear better suited for hard, smooth tracks. At every innovation, there were athletes able to step up, adapt and rise to the top of the competition heap. Marc Girardelli was a classic example. Bode Miller is a current example, and his run on the fabled Lauberhorn downhill last weekend is another illustration. The guy is a pioneer, someone who breaks new ground — an innovator or initiator.
    He is not leading the World Cup, yet he is being chased.
    In sports, where the parameters and goals are clearly defined, competitors are quick to follow a pioneer who finds a better way. If Miller is among those leading the ever-evolving face of our sport, there are plenty of others intent on making their own mark. Some of them are not so familiar.
    There have been seven first-time winners on the World Cup so far this season: Therese Borssen — Semmering SL; John Kucera — Lake Louise SG; Julia Mancuso — Val d’Isere DH; Andre Myhrer — Beaver Creek SL; Steven Nyman — Val Gardena DH; Kathrin Zettel — Aspen GS; and Marc Berthod — Adelboden SL. Ten more have tallied their first podiums: Romed Baumann, Nadia Fanchini, Dominique Gisin, Michael Janyk, Ana Jelusic, Michaela Kirchgasser, Felix Neureuther, Manuel Osborn-Paradis, Kelly VanderBeek and Sarka Zahrobska.
    That’s a 17-player list of new talent, and that is exciting. Zahrobska, by the way, makes my All-Name Team. Go Czech Republic.
    A few things we want to mention. Paul Robbins pointed out that Ski Racing’s 2006 Junior of the Year, Megan McJames, won two NorAm GS races in Quebec on a Wednesday and Thursday, caught a plane Thursday night, arrived in Slovenia Friday and raced a World Cup Saturday, finishing two-tenths of a second from making her second run. Kudos Megan. And kudos to Kaylin Richardson, busting into the top 10 with fewer than 10 Cup race results to her résumé.
    And one other thing: listen to Resi Stiegler talk about skis in the video on these pages. “If I’m comfortable on them, I can make them fast”
    Ooh, we like to hear that.
    Safe speed.