McKee's McThoughts: On baking rolls, Bode and Benni

“We must bake somewhat smaller rolls this winter.”
    That’s a synopsis of the Austrian women’s alpine season from the Austrian Standard newspaper. Without really knowing, one has to believe the translation doesn’t do the turning of the phrase justice. I imagine it’s an age-old saying, part of the collective childhood. As such, its usage is brilliant.
    Austria’s women’s head coach Herbert Mandl points out his team’s results are not bad, just not up to last season.
    Sounds about right. The Austrian women only have double the points of anybody else: 2,413 to 1,197 for Italy. Last season at this same point of the season they led 3,104-1,064 over the U.S. or two times the points. So, yeah, it’s a pretty drastic dip.
“WE MUST BAKE somewhat smaller rolls this winter.”
    That’s a synopsis of the Austrian women’s alpine season from the Austrian Standard newspaper. Without really knowing, one has to believe the translation doesn’t do the turning of the phrase justice. I imagine it’s an age-old saying, part of the collective childhood. As such, its usage is brilliant.
    Austria’s women’s head coach Herbert Mandl points out summa summarum (gotta love the use of Latin, eh? All things totaled. … All in all. … literally, the sum of sums) his team’s results are not bad, just not up to last season.
    Sounds about right. The Austrian women only have double the points of anybody else: 2,413 to 1,197 for Italy. Last season at this same point of the season they led 3,104-1,064 over the U.S. or two times the points. So, yeah, it’s a pretty drastic dip.
    And also, yes, before we go much further, the U.S. has been doing really well this season and are six points out of second place at 1,197, or more than a hundred points better than last year at this point. It’s just that the Italian squad has been on fire.
    The folks at Fischer asked Denise Karbon, the Italian who has won all three giant slaloms, what her recipe for success is. She allowed as how, “It’s nice to be the one that others want to beat. Everything is just falling into place at the moment. Today in particular [Lienz GS] was just such an “easy ride.” The skis simply stayed on track, responded and accelerated all the time. Everything is just as it should be at the moment, I come out of every turn thinking it was perfect.”
    Remembering that she was talking to her ski company, it still seems to be a case of when it is going good, it is going good.
    But Mandl is being asked to explain his team’s precipitous drop-off.
    “In the previous year everything played together. Nearly always the luck held,” he said.
    Not so much this year. The St. Anton combined, he pointed out, was a prime example.
    Remember that race? Lindsey Vonn was first, Julia Mancuso third. No Austrians were on the podium.
    Now here’s the Austrian perspective. Vonn won the downhill leg convincingly, but the Austrians had a pair of quality slalom skiers tied in second (Nicole Hosp) and seventh (Marlies Schild). To Mandl, that looked like a double win waiting to happen.
“You had, after the downhill nearly two seconds arrears. There, one must attack. Tactics are always very, very difficult, because the clearance is very small.”
    So the Austrian stars attacked because that is what one does, and they paid the price, failing to complete their slalom runs.
    That outcome from that decision would be pretty damaging to some teams. It could be enough to derail an entire season. But the Austrians still put three skiers into the top 10 with 18-year-old Anna Fenninger in fourth, 21-year-old Kathrin Zettel tied for fifth and Christine Sponring in eighth.
    Mandl suggests he has no vacuum behind his top skiers. A little luck and all is well. 

    I GOTTA WONDER how Bode Miller feels about that concept. He suggested after winning Bormio’s lonesome downhill that his hand-picked coaches were about ready to kill him if he didn’t win soon. I doubt that translation will be as eloquent in another language as baking smaller buns, but the correct sentiment will get across. Miller really nailed that run at Bormio. The course suits him in that it allows a skier to make up miscalculations and to take risks. Miller did both.
    And now he is one win behind Phil Mahre for the U.S. World Cup win record.
    Historically more important, he is now among the top 10 men all-time.
    He just tied Franz Klammer.
    Franz Freakin’ Klammer. The Kaiser. The author of the run of downhill all others are still compared to, at Innsbruck in the ’76 Olympics. Franz Klammer never won more World Cup races than Bode Miller. More downhills, yes, but Miller is part of a new breed of racers, capable across the board. Klammer was a specialist, more common in his day.
    No matter how you break it down, Miller is rubbing shoulders with some of the most recognizable names in ski racing history. Here’s some amazing connections to Ken Read, Marc Girardelli, Kjetil Andre Aamodt and Jean-Claude Killy: With the Bormio win Bode has as many downhill wins as Ken Read, the president of Alpine Canada and a charter member of the Crazy Canucks. Miller has as many GS wins as Girardelli — a guy who also knew a lick about racing independently, winning a record five overall titles for his adopted country of Luxembourg. Miller has as many super G wins as the recently retired Aamodt with more World Championship and Olympic medals than anyone. Hell, he’s got as many slalom wins as Killy. (Fair, no, but never let the facts get in the way of a good story).
    Now consider how good we have it to watch him race and note one more thing: There is an active skier ahead of Bode Miller on that top 10 list. Benjamin Raich with 30 wins.
    They were born four months, 16 days and many worlds apart. Arzl, Raich’s hometown, is a suburb of Innsbruck — he was born two years and three days after Klammer’s run — which makes Raich a city boy of sorts. Bode’s stomping grounds are Franconia, New Hampshire, which hasn’t been the same since the Old Man of the Mountains fell off. Bode’s done it all his own way; Raich the team way. Yet here they are breathing the same rarified air as the greatest skiers of all time. And we get to watch two of the best ever at the same time. Which means we have — as the German translates — “two times the luck.”
    I bet we got it from the Austrian team. Perhaps we can start baking larger rolls now.

    OUR CONGRATULATIONS to Anna Goodman for her first World Cup points. She had finished the first run of the Lienz slalom 31st, but got into the second heat when there was a disqualification.
    “I haven’t done a second run in the World Cup before so I was pretty stoked,” said Goodman. “Every time I inspect I tell myself that I wish I could start first. Today I was able to actually do it. Which was great. It was pretty icy though so it wasn’t a huge advantage. … I was really nervous. I held back a little bit and didn’t really a
ttack, but I just skied. When I got to the bottom I knew that this was going to be something that I could build off of.”
    The coach who informed her she was getting that second run was Canadian women’s tech coach Bozo Jaklin. We need a coach for the McThoughts All-Name Team and who could be better?