Counterpoint: Bode Miller

So Bode Miller's catching a lot of flak these days because he

1. drank and partied his way through the Olympics
2. failed to medal
3. didn't live up to the hype

Bode's critics believe that he should have gotten a good night's rest and curtailed his partying ways during the Games and that his failure to do so is the reason that he underperformed and let us down. They use alot more words, but the criticism can generally be summarized by my Vapid cousin's latest post.

Well, I don't think much of Bode, but I'm in his corner on this one, and so is anyone who actually skis for fun. I think he did the right thing, and here's why:

Bode has never been a skier in the mold of the ultra-disciplined Germanic variety. (See my post about nutty Germans.) Instead, he's a New England ski bum. Even a casual skier has seen scads of them on any given winter on the slopes. They're usually drunk or hungover, they often have a cigarette dangling precariously from their lips, and they tear down the slope recklessly, at breakneck speeds, and in a wild, barely controlled fashion. Obnoxious? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. But having tried it once (in a less competent fashion), I can attest to the fact that it's really fun.

But I digress. How is Bode Miller different from these ski bums? Yes, he's an Olympian and a World Cup champion. But really -- he's just like any of those idiots, except he's stronger and perhaps more reckless and therefore had more success. His form and his personality -- both on and off the mountain -- are just as wild and undisciplined. I would argue that to change the formula that brought him to his present level of success -- any of it -- would be stupid and foolhardy.

Plus, all that hype about Bode? Really a recent media invention. In-the-know ski enthusiasts have always known that Bode was never a reliable skier. The same wild style that sometimes lets him get down the mountain at incredibly fast speeds also means that Bode is every bit as likely to wipe out spectacularly or ski off course. Bode is popular at ski races because he's entertaining -- not because he dominates. And he also didn't win World Cup because he reliably won races (or even finished them) but because he accumulated a lot of points because he races so often.

But in the end, here's why Bode had it right: at the very elite levels of skiing, the difference between first place and fourth place is often a matter of hundreths of seconds. A stray snowdrift or ice patch can add a whole second to your time. Which means luck is going to play as much of a role in the medal rounds as an extra few hours of sleep. Bode put it best: Daron Rahlves did the "right thing" and stayed in -- and he, too, failed the medal despite all expectations. But Bode got to meet all those people and had all that fun.

If I had to walk away from the Olympics without a medal, I'd at least want some good partying memories and some new friends as compensation.