Make Way For The Gate Crasher

The word from Bode Miller's coach this year is that Miller has finally matured as a ski racer. Found the brake pedal. The guy was always as fast as an avalanche, but just as wild. He would occasionally show up on the winners' podium, but that seemed purely accidental. The rest of the time Bullet Bode (it's pronounced Bo-dee) would be so far off the course you would need a GPS to find him. This season, though, Miller has been a fixture on the winners' stand of the World Cup tour, Europe's glamorous winter circuit. He has won four races outright, something an American hasn't done in almost two decades. At Salt Lake City he will be a medal contender in the slalom, giant slalom and combined (downhill and slalom) events, "the variety pack," as he calls it.

But maturity? No way, says Miller, 24, who proved it a couple of months ago by running his car into a tree. Oh, he wasn't in it. Uh-oh, no one was--Miller started the car, in gear, without getting in. Besides, he says, "I'm skiing really similar to the way I've been skiing for the past five years. I still crash out of races."

The difference this year is that Miller knows he's faster than anyone else running slalom gates; it's just a question of how fast he needs to be to win. So he has learned how to better manage that tiny margin of error that separates world beaters from snow eaters. "He doesn't have to go all out every run," explains Tommy Moe, who won the downhill in 1994. "When you get that confident, it's really easy to ski fast."

Miller is the triple-threat leader of a U.S. ski team that is crucial to the U.S. Olympic Committee's goal of winning a record 20 medals in these Games. (The tally from Nagano in 1998: 13.) In freestyle skiing's mogul and aerial events--bumps and jumps--wild man Jonny Moseley and the meticulous Eric Bergoust will be defending their respective titles. The mogul team is impressively deep. The women's bumpers, led by Hannah Hardaway and Shannon Bahrke, could sweep, or be swept, in an amazingly talented field led by Norway's Kari Traa. Overall, nothing less than a perfect run will win. That means big "airs," such as helicopters and other spectacular jumps. Moseley is working on one he calls the "dinner roll." Says moguls head coach Don St. Pierre: "It looks pretty hairy. The fact that he skis away is going to impress the crowd."

In the "technical" events--slalom and giant slalom--Kristina Koznick, the prodigal child of the women's team, is returning home in great form. And Picabo Street has once again been surgically reassembled to contest the downhill. One more sensational crash, though, and she will have to be sold for parts.

Bergoust, a.k.a. Air Bergy, the defending gold medalist in aerial skiing, sees these Games as a huge opportunity for his sport to "transcend skiing." Says he: "An aerials event in sunny blue sky is the most beautiful thing." Aerials tickets sold out before the downhill tickets, and competition will take place in front of some 13,000 fans in a festive atmosphere at Deer Valley.