Audible: Bode Miller

Admit It. You hated him. You probably still do. You believed in Bode Miller, the wild-child hippie from New Hampshire who was supposed to conquer skiing with his irreverent attitude and risky style. But when he came up empty at the 2006 Olympics, then professed not to care, you called him names: loser, blowhard, party boy, fraud. Pretty harsh, considering he was the reigning World Cup champ and would finish the season third in the overall standings, a feat equaled by only two other American men ever. Even so, U.S. team honchos adopted new rules requiring skiers to sleep in the team hotel (Bode prefers his motor home) and forbidding them from partying with coaches. As usual, Miller responded in an unexpected way: He trained hard over the summer, won three early World Cup races and flirted with the overall lead, while his teammates earned a stunning 12 podium spots in the first 27 events (through Dec. 29). Is Bode back? He never left.

A lot of America hates me, and a lot of the press doesn't like me either. But that's the sacrifice I had to make. If I tried to do what everyone else wanted all the time, I would have had to quit.

It's much better when people don't like me. When everyone wants to be your friend because they think you're awesome, well, they don't really think you're awesome; they want you to help their career. It sounds cynical, but things are better for me since the Olympics.

Skiing at this level is pretty damn fun. I'm glad I'm able to manage everything, because I'm right at the edge of what I'm comfortable with. Last year, I said I didn't know if I could stay in the sport without being miserable. But I'm doing it.

As for the new rules, I understand if team officials are trying to bring us together. They want to make skiing more like the pro team sports. But I don't believe the motives were pure. They caught a lot of flak for the stuff at the Olympics and wanted to look like they weren't too chicken to address the problem. It's a good effort, but why not just hire a PR agency?

I'm sure people think we have a rave every night in the motor home, that it's a massive orgy. It doesn't matter what we do; it's the perception. The guys who made the rules are just dealing with what the media is saying. As teammates, we're going to work together to a degree, but it's not like we're all in one big bunk bed shacking up

I'm in the motor home all day. I eat lunch and breakfast there, go to the hotel to spin on the bike, go back to the motor home to eat dinner, go back to the hotel for our meeting, go back to the motor home, play video games, watch movies, hang out, read. Go to the hotel at 11:30, sleep in a crappy bed, wake up, go to the motor home, eat breakfast, get dressed and go ski. It's a completely pointless deal.

My teammates refuse to learn from my situation. They write it off as a fluke: "Oh, Bode, he does his own thing. He's weird. He's unique." They don't take what I've done—the way I've run my program or my career—and apply it to themselves. It's frustrating to see them running into the same barriers I've overcome, and yet none of them is willing to take my lessons to heart.

"Perfect" is a silly word to use in skiing. You're right to the edge or past the edge of what you're capable of. You'd like to be slowing down, but it's almost like a free fall. You're in a zone, not willing to throw out the parachute. You're still looking for speed even though you're well past your comfort zone. If you're the best in the world and you're still pushing your limits at that level, it's pretty cool. You cannot push a course like the downhill at Bormio [Italy] to its limit. The mountain always has more, if you have the balls to get to it. That's what I like most.

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