Bode Miller’s mind on legacy this time around

American skier Bode Miller, who can infuriate and inspire in equal measure, heads to the Sochi Games looking to blow away his foes and put the finishing touches to a complicated legacy.

Bode Miller has made as many headlines for his party attitude at previous Winter Games. Now married and a parent, Miller says he wants to cement his legacy at Sochi. Stefano Rellandini / Reuters

There have been Winter Olympics in which Bode Miller seemed more focused on claiming a gold medal in partying than reaching the top of the podium.

But the American skier, who can infuriate and inspire in equal measure, heads to the Sochi Games looking to blow away his foes and put the finishing touches to a complicated legacy.

Now 36 years old, married with children and on the down slope of a thought-provoking career that spans five Winter Games, Miller’s notorious partying days have given way to sober reflection.

And there is a mountain of work and controversies to reflect upon.

“As you get older, legacy starts to come into your mind a little bit,” Miller said.

“I would never devalue the importance of an Olympic medal, because I know it is important in the bigger scheme of things, but it’s not what motivates me and it’s not what you judge yourself by at the end of the day.

“Legacy is a strange term and it’s hard to think about in terms of how it applies to reality, because it is the compilation of your life’s work. Unfortunately, you don’t get to pick your legacy.”

The most successful American male alpine skier in history, Miller’s body of work is impressive for its breadth and scope.

One of the few skiers to stand atop the World Cup podium in all five disciplines, for a decade Miller was the ironman of the slopes and rarely took a race off.

Miller’s results include 33 World Cup wins (76 podiums), two World Cup overall titles, four world championships and five Olympic medals, highlighted by a gold in the combined at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

But it is the rebellious American’s daredevil, all-or-nothing approach to racing that has made him a fan favourite wherever the White Circus pitches its tent.

A mix of instinctive talent and fearless aggression, Miller races on the edge of calamity, each run a hair-raising adventure that leaves spectators in breathless awe or gripped with terror.

For Miller, ski racing has always been about the journey not the destination, his results meaningless unless accompanied with worthy performance.

Even now, approaching the twilight of his career, skiing’s tortured artist is still competing by his own rules, still chasing the perfect run.

“It’s always a bigger picture thing,” Miller said

“There are all the different components there, but if you come down and you win a gold medal and you feel [bad] about how you raced, there’s just no sugarcoating that.

“A gold medal might smooth over a little bit, everyone wants a gold medal, but the fact is, the process and the experiences supersede the medal by far.”

After sitting out last season recovering from knee surgery, Miller has returned as hungry as ever.

Before the start of the current World Cup campaign, he dropped 20 pounds and, cocky as ever, firing a warning shot across the bow of his teammates at an Olympic media summit.

“I’m going to kick ass,” he said. “That’s the gist of it, I’m prepared, I’ve been training hard for a year, basically, since I didn’t race last year.

“Obviously, it is a perishable process being a ski racer and I think until you are all rotten and shrivelled up, you should keep going.

“I’m pretty shrivelled up, but I’m not all the way rotten yet.”

Born and raised in the backwoods of New Hampshire, in a cabin with no indoor plumbing or electricity, Miller remains alpine skiing’s free-spirited deep thinker.

He has frequently marched to the beat of his own drum, on and off the ski hill, a non-conformist often at odds with the skiing establishment.

Miller’s feuds with the International Ski Federation (FIS) and the US Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) are legendary.

Unhappy with FIS and the way the World Cup was being run, Miller once threatened to start his own breakaway circuit.

He has courted controversy throughout his career, once suggesting some performance-enhancing drugs should be legal.

No matter how his results play out in Sochi, Miller’s place in ski racing’s pantheon of greats is secure.

“I look back on it and I wouldn’t change very much,” he said. “It’s been the love of my life until now, to be able to leave it in a good place and leave it with the right energy ... that is important to me.

“If you do that, it is about as much as you can ask.”

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