Beaver Creek: Miller's win a technical masterpiece

Bill Marolt said it clearly: “We needed a little guts and character and we needed a big result. We needed a big bang to get our season started. Now this sort of shifts us into high gear and gets us going.”
    "This" was a spectacular U.S. performance in unspectacular weather Friday, led by Bode Miller's big win in the Birds of Prey downhill. Miller rebounded from a disappointing DNF in Thursday’s super combined with a trademark win Friday. He started slowly on the top flats, then poured on the speed on the more technical and turny bottom half of the course to edge Switzerland’s Didier Cuche by 0.15 seconds.

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — Bill Marolt said it clearly: “We needed a little guts and character and we needed a big result. We needed a big bang to get our season started. Now this sort of shifts us into high gear and gets us going.”
    "This" was a spectacular U.S. performance in unspectacular weather Friday, led by Bode Miller's big win in the Birds of Prey downhill. Miller rebounded from a disappointing DNF in Thursday’s super combined with a trademark win Friday. He started slowly on the top flats, then poured on the speed on the more technical and turny bottom half of the course to edge Switzerland’s Didier Cuche by 0.15 seconds.
    “After [Thursday] it was a little tough,” Miller said. “I had such a big lead, and to be skiing so well and then to not be able to get to the finish in the slalom, I really wanted to put that behind me and come out here with a fresh attitude and ski the same way I know how.”
    Miller overcame howling winds at the start, falling snow throughout the course, flat light, bad visibility. Nothing — not even a coach who slipped and fell in front of Miller while he was rounding a corner near the top of the course in Pete’s Arena — could slow down the U.S. Ski Team’s most talented — and sometimes most frustrating — ski racer.
    Miller’s way of racing is usually super aggressive. He’s said numerous times in the past that winning doesn’t mean everything for him between the gates; he wants to ski the most perfect run at the fastest possible speed. Friday’s run was a masterpiece. He led at the final two intermediate split times, flashing superb turning skills and touch on his new Head skis to win the Birds of Prey downhill for the second time in his career.
    Perhaps the key to Miller’s win came near the bottom in The Abyss section. In Thursday’s super combined downhill, Miller cleared two knolls with a long jump that helped him maintain speed but left him with a tough approach into the difficult Harrier jump. Miller tweaked his approach Friday, not jumping as far and landing on the second knoll because he was convinced the speed of the course wasn’t as high. Scrubbing speed allowed Miller to attack the Harrier jump more cleanly.
    “… [On Thursday] when I cleared [the knolls] it was great. It’s way smoother, it looks cooler and it feels better, but it screwed me up for the Harrier jump and I ended up losing eight tenths down here. If I’d done that today, I’d be way off the podium,” Miller said. “I made that small correction when I landed on the nub there. It looks terrible and it feels terrible but it allows you to make a small correction to your line. I was inside, much tighter in there and I ended up skiing the bottom section a lot faster.”
    Miller almost didn’t make it to the bottom of the course if that falling coach had slipped two seconds later in Miller’s run. Television coverage showed Miller finishing a right turn and preparing for a wide lefthand turn when an orange blip slid across the screen from left to right. Miller was asked if he saw the coach fall.
    “Absolutely. He’s wearing orange and he goes right across the course, there’s not a very easy way to miss him,” he said.
    Miller said Friday’s low clouds and snow actually helped him focus and avoid the falling coach. “It was actually an advantage that the conditions were so tough today and the visibility so poor because you narrow in your focus when that happens, you pay much more attention to what’s right in front of you,” he said. “If it’s a perfectly clear, sunny day, you can see everything out of your peripheral vision. So I think it was to my advantage.
    “But once I realized he was out of my way, and I wouldn’t have to jump over him or anything, there was no way I was going to stop.”
    Besides lot losing as much time on the Harrier jump, Miller credited better visibility in the Pumphouse section and being faster on the top flats as factors in his victory. The win was Miller’s first on his new Head setup, and second-place finisher Didier Cuche also skis on Head.
    “This kind of a result is good for me and the company. They’ve always been excited about having me, we’ve been working together great. But unless you have the results to back that up it can kind of get wearing as the season goes along. It’s great to have at least one win.”