Bode Miller "full of late liquids"? "Brokeback" props for sale on eBay. Plus: A Mandy Moore flack goes nuts.

Feb. 13, 2006 |

Bode Call! Update: After Bode Miller finished fifth in the men's downhill on Sunday, 0.11 seconds out of medal contention, columnists everywhere whipped up a fresh batch of indignation. (See the first installment of Bode Call for more.) Why the furor? Simply because he didn't win the first of his five events (and he may have had a few drinks the night before his race, according to various reports). Miller himself weighed in with this: "The variables that determine a ski race are too many to count." Think again, Bode -- there's no place for nuance and evenhandedness in the business of talking about international athletic competition.

"Bode Miller could have partied all night with the Swedish bikini team, come to the start house with a lampshade on his head, and if he had snagged a gold medal, it would have been just another chapter in the legend. Instead, he was seen having some beers with his buds around midnight, showed up just an hour before the race and bombed in the race that will define his career. In just a bit less than two minutes on a brilliantly sunny day in the mountains of northern Italy, Bode went from ski hero to ski bum."

-- Mike Celizic, MSNBC, Feb. 12

"All that for this? The outrageous statements? The controversies? The magazine covers? For fifth place in the men's Olympic downhill? Dude, if you talk the talk, you have to be able to ski the ski."

-- Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 13

"It would make perfect sense for a guy like Bode Miller to lay low and stay out of sight the night before his first big event since shooting his mouth off about drinking and skiing. But when has the 28-year-old American ever made sense? Instead, the renegade skier, who seems intent these days on blowing up his career and whatever image he was able to muster on the World Cup circuit last year, was spotted hanging out in a pub until midnight Saturday, the night before the men's downhill."

-- Ed Moran, Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 12

"A subjective theory is that Miller may be just too full of it to win, full of himself, full of his nonconformity, full of late liquids, as he has confessed to the world. Miller was reported to have been drinking until midnight Saturday and getting to the downhill casually late. What matters is Miller was not fast enough, leaving the single greatest title of the Olympics on the hill for a French surprise named Antoine Deneriaz. What Deneriaz will do with the gold medal is of little interest from here on. What Miller will do without it is more compelling."

-- Bernie Lincicome, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 13

-- Joe DiMento

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