Jennings: Bode Miller’s do-or-crash attitude would be missed

After days of looking at mountain webcam images of slush, mist and mud, I decided to get my skiing thrills vicariously last week. I looked forward to following the FIS Alpine World Skiing Championships – which ends its two-week run Sunday – held in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

I eagerly awaited the return to racing of Bode Miller, America’s skiing iconoclast. Miller hadn’t competed since hurting his back in a crash during a downhill training run at the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, last March. After struggling through pain to get ready for this season, he relented to the surgeon’s knife in November to repair a herniated disc.

Many ski racing insiders speculated that Miller’s career was over after the Lenzerheide crash. After all, he was 36 years old at the time. Would he continue to man up against much younger athletes who haven’t yet accumulated the scars, plates and screws of 16 World Cup seasons? Yet a few months’ convalescence after surgery was all Miller needed.

The super G world championship on Feb. 4 was his first event in nearly a year, but no rust appeared to be evident. Miller looked like he always does – attacking, taking risks and showing no fear – with unorthodox, yet powerful grace.

Two-thirds of the way down, Miller had about a half-second lead, a huge margin in ski racing. Searching for every last millisecond of speed, he cut a gate too close, clipping it with his left arm traveling about 60 mph. The impact spun him backward and sent him head over heels. His skis popped off and were captured in his orbit as he tumbled. He gathered himself and waved to the crowd, sliding on his backside down the icy course.

Typical Miller, I thought. Win or crash. No matter, he looks OK. He’ll be back in the downhill Saturday. But as Miller walked away from the finish area, a cameraman gave viewers the gruesome close-up of a deep, anatomically revealing gash behind his knee, sliced open by the razor-sharp edge of a ski in the crash.

Miller had severed a hamstring tendon and his racing season was over before it had a chance to get started. In an interview Saturday with NBC Sports, he hinted that this latest crash could be his last.

Contemplating Miller’s retirement, I thought about some of the feats I’ve seen over the years. Some of my favorites include the downhill leg of the super combined (one downhill, one slalom) in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where he caught an edge that nearly ripped his leg off, only to pull off an amazing recovery and win silver.

Skiing the downhill leg of the super combined at the 2005 World Championships in Bormio, Italy, he lost a ski 15 seconds into his run. He actually tried to finish, skiing beautifully on one leg, until course marshals forced him off the piste. Racing on one ski is actually against the rules. But Miller has rarely been bothered by such details.

A brief summary of Miller’s career includes Olympic and World Championship gold medals, two overall World Cup championships and 33 World Cup victories. He’s one of five men in history to win World Cup events in all five disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill and super combined. He’s the only skier in history with five or more victories in each discipline.

Most superior athletes feel an obligation to go out on top. But Miller isn’t typical that way.

“I’m not one of those people who needs a grand showing off or a parade,” he said in the NBC interview. “I just won’t be there.”

It would be tempting to dismiss his statements about retirement as the sutures in his hamstring tendon talking. But crashing has always been intrinsic to Miller’s game. Looking forward to feeling like “getting beat up with nightsticks,” as he described last week’s crash for NBC, has got to get old. As the greatest American skier of all time, and one of the greatest World Cup skiers of all time, he’s earned a rest.