Downhill skier Bode Miller, who won two silver medals at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 but was shut out in a disappointing showing in this year’s Torino Games, has signed a one-game contract to play for the Nashua (N.H.) Pride of the independent CanAm League.

Disappointing? What was disappointing about Bode Miller’s performance in Torino? How soon we forget that he partied at an Olympic level. These are the screwed-up expectations that the oppressed Bode Miller has to deal with. People expect winning, results, trying hard, competing, and reaching his full capability… all that bullshit. What’s important is that he partied at an Olympic level, no matter what the squares and hypocrites in the media would have you believe.

It is to raise money for charity, though. $5,000 of the ticket sales will go to Bode’s Turtle Ridge Foundation, which will in turn give the money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. It’s nice that some money is going to a worthy cause, and Bode gets a round of applause for that. But I kinda thought that Bode and Lance had some beef. Once upon a time, Bode intimated to the media (who I’m sure twisted his words and is incapable of truly understanding the depth of his character) that Lance was using steroids, and Lance was none too thrilled about it.

Anyway, good luck to Bode in his new efforts to party at a minor league level.

But there are things I don’t get. I don’t get why it’s okay to come to the Olympics and not try your hardest to win. I don’t get why you wouldn’t train as hard as you possibly could. I don’t get why it’s a bigger goal to party with a positively frightening woman and socialize “at an Olympic level” than it is to actually put forth your best performance. I don’t get why it’s OK to take a spot on the Olympic team from someone who would’ve taken it seriously and who would’ve tried their hardest.

When you have the talent to be the best, then it is about winning. To say it isn’t is to completely cop out, to make excuses for why you don’t have to make that commitment. Bode Miller is not the Jamaican bobsled team. He’s one of the best in the world. It shouldn’t be about just being here. I believe he does have an obligation to try and win. It’s not enough to go out and “rock.” If he can’t take having that responsibility, he should quit. Give the spot to someone who will give an honest effort. Give it to someone who believes the Olympics are more than about partying.

We watch sports because we want to see winners and losers. These sports exist because we watch with the assumption that we’re going to see who’s the best. And when someone goes out there without having prepared to the best of their ability, we don’t see that. When someone goes out there who just wants to “rock,” we don’t get that. Ultimately, as sports fans, we’re sold something that we aren’t getting.

Hey, I don’t care that he didn’t win. Lots of people didn’t win. Even with all the commercials, all the headlines, the 60 Minutes, the magazine covers, etc… if he goes over there and busts his ass, and someone was better… that’s fine. I didn’t think poorly of Dan O’Brien when Reebok’s Dan and Dave campaign went bust. But I do think poorly of Bode Miller for treating the Olympics as if they were just an opportunity for him to make some Nike money and have a good time.

And so, Mike Modano… you, my friend, are pussbag numero uno. Mike had this to say after the Olympics:

“Basically, we were on our own as far as arrangements, flights, hotels, tickets. Normally, that’s something you don’t have to think about. That’s something that should be taken care of so we don’t have to worry about it and can focus on hockey and get ready to play.”

Is that really your excuse, man? You were thinking of scoring some goals, but it was too hard, because you had to call a travel agent a week ago? What the fuck? Come on, man… make up an injury or something. Say that there was poor ice in Torino. Say you had too much pasta, say you lost your lucky jock strap… but you had to make arrangements to get there? That’s your big problem? Fuck. You.

Teemu Selanne heard his excuse and responded:

“Everybody has to do it. There’s no help. Nobody had direct flights here. It’s not easy for anybody. You have jet lag and then you play six games in eight nights.”

Translation: “I did all that, too. But I’m undefeated. Why? Because I am not a pussbag like Mike Modano.”

Silver: Shani Davis.

Gold: Italian guy named Enrico Fabris.

“One of the good things about my career is I have such extensive knowledge, so I always go as hard as I can. Some guys can go 70-80 percent and get results, but I wouldn’t do that. If things went well, I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold.”

You know, if things went well for Scott Norwood, he’d be a Super Bowl champion right now. If things went well for Craigh Ehlo, Michael Jordan wouldn’t have buried a jumper in his grill. A lot of things could’ve gone a lot of ways… but you’ve had four chances at it, chief, and not once has it gone well.

I’m trying to understand the guy, but I’m just not getting it. I don’t understand the part about not being disappointed when you lose. He says things like, oh, kids shouldn’t get down on themselves for not winning, for not being the best, it’s all about fulfilling their potential… and I get that. That’s great. But then he goes out, clearly comes up way short of his potential, and that’s okay?

I don’t get it. I’d like to like the guy, but I can’t… maybe one of you who has joined Bode can help explain things to me. But for now, I’m not going to Join Bode. But Bode can feel free join me in the Guys Who Didn’t Win Medals In Torino Club, as I suspect he will when he fails to medal in his 5th and final event.

Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t care about them and won’t watch them. In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” he must’ve been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing.

So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don’t understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years.

Face it — these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin.

Well… yeah. I agree in the sense that these are not the “best athletes in the world,” and I never thought for a second that they were. They’re just guys who happen to be good at some winter sport. What Bryant Gumbel said was fine, and that the Winter Olympics exist is fine. As I’ve said, if it’s competitive, and there’s a medal on the line, I can enjoy damn near anything, if it’s just once every four years. If NASCAR only existed for about a week, once every four years, I’d probably a buy a damn Dale Rusty Junior sticker for my car.

But people are apparently pretty upset with Gumby. I just can’t believe people are making a big deal about what he said about the lack of black athletes. It’s not an insult to white athletes, but it’s a fact that just about the entire continent of Africa is all but excluded from the Winter Olympics, because of economic and climate reasons. That’s the way things are. If you exclude half the people in the world from participating, then no, you can’t claim to have the best athletes in the world. You may have the best skiiers, you might have the best bobsledders, you might have the best curlers… but best athletes? Sorry. They just aren’t.

And he’s right when he says that the Winter Olympics are a marketing plan to fill space and sell time. But… you know, that’s pretty much the definition of big-time sports in America. It’s all about marketing, it’s all about TV time, and it’s all about ad revenue. No matter how entertaining or meaningful you find it to be, at the end of the day, it exists for television and ad revenue. Period. For every sport.

Joey Cheek is a stud. I hope he gets major, major media attention in the coming days. American gold medal winners are awarded $25,000 from the USOC, and Cheek, after having won gold in the 500m speedskating, is giving all of it, every single penny, to refugees in Darfur.

I caught some curling yesterday, and I gotta tell ya… curling makes the Nordic Combined look like a perfectly natural and reasonable sport. I don’t know who dreamed this thing up. Someone, somewhere, said to themselves… “It would be cool if there were a long patch of ice, and we created some ridiculous thing that looked like a a couple of woks welded together with a handle glued on top, and a we pushed it down the ice and had a couple of dudes running in front of it, each of them furiously manipulating their Swiffer WetJet, and they swept in front of the ice and tried to knock the other guy’s wok contraption of a couple of big blue circles, which were painted on the ice earlier.” I don’t understand it, I don’t know why it exists… but as I’ve said, once every four years, I can get behind it. Especially the young American curling sisters pictured above, who can certainly curl my toes anytime.

Also, Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler took gold and silver for America in the women’s halfpipe. Hannah Teter is my second favorite X Games athlete of all time, with #1 being Roach from Next Friday. To tell you the truth, the X Games people are some of the most likable people at the Olympics. Shaun White just seems like a down-to-earth and fun guy.

I’ve got this idea in the back of my head that, with all the sex going on in the Olympic Village… that somehow, somewhere, the paths of Shaun White and Grandma Luge will cross, and we will have a modern-day Harold and Maude story. That would be the greatest story to ever occur in Olympic history.

Join Bode?

I guess that’s a little harsh, but for someone who made that much noise before the Olympics, I was expecting a little more. And there are other events left for him, sure, but the downhill is the big one. If you want to talk about skiing drunk, if you want to call Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds cheaters, fine… but you should probably be able to do a little something yourself. Congratulations on 5th.

The guy who won, actually, is a pretty cool story. Frenchy Antoine Deneriaz was a non-story. Just some random anonymous guy that usually shows up to the Olympics, runs his race, finishes nowhere near the top, enjoys two weeks of constant sex the most physically fit women in the world, and goes home. He was 38th in the World Cup standings, hadn’t finished better than 7th all season, was racing down a messed-up track, and has his knee all torn up just 13 months ago. But he put together a perfect run. Nice work, Frenchy.

Snowboarder Shaun “The Flying Tomato” White won the gold in the men’s halfpipe, despite having one of the goofiest nicknames of all time. He actually didn’t quite dominate like he was expected to – he had to come from behind to get the gold.

As you may know, I’m not into the X-Games stuff. But it’s the Olympics. If it’s just once every four years, I can cheer for damn near anything. I’m not into the Nordic Combined, either, but I watched the whole fucking thing on Saturday… so I can deal with some snowboarding.  I’m so into it, I’m considering drinking some fucking Mountain Dew.  I am that extreme.
The women’s halfpipe is tonight, and will likely be an American sweep.