On Sunday, Bode Miller matched Phil Mahre’s long standing record for World Cup race victories by an American – at 27 – by winning the Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen, Switzerland.
Some will now say that that now removes all doubt – with this, Bode has earned the title of “Best Ever American Ski Racer”. And there are some pretty strong arguments to be made for that. Those tend to be more obvious because Bode is current, and his impact is fresh in our minds. There are also some strong arguments that say Phil is still the man. In this post, I won’t be exhausting all points and counterpoints that I can think of – I’m hoping you will jump in and hit all those and even some that have not occurred to me – but here are a couple to get you started.
Phil’s 27 include 11 combined wins – that’s a full 40% of his total. So what? Simple, combined races have never attracted the same amount of competition as have the individual specialties. Tell me who the current “SC specialist” is. Grange? Ligety? Benni? Bode? Albrecht? No, they are all specialists in, well, specialties. They come around and scoop up SC points because they can do it relatively easily. None are near the best in both slalom and downhill. These are the big SC point scorers, yet you don’t see them giving up GS training in order to concentrate on combined. Less competition equals easier to win. This was as true, or truer in Phil’s time. That’s not to say that some of the very best skiers haven’t won combined titles – they have. But peruse the list of combined podium scorers over history, and you’ll find yourself saying “who?”, and “never heard of him!” way more often than you do if you look at a list of specialty event podiums. With the exception of the rare speed event race when conditions create a farce, you don’t score a top three in a specialty event with mediocre skiing, no matter how much luck or fate wants you to. Heck, you won’t make the top 20 if that’s all you’ve got. So, since a higher percentage of Phil’s wins are in combined events. Point Bode.
Phil’s wins came during the reign of the best and most dominant ski racer ever, Ingemar Stenmark. Wins were harder to come by then because of the Swede, especially in Ingemar's strong events – slalom and GS – where Phil scored most of his wins. Point Phil.
Phil would have been very good at Super-G, and probably would have taken advantage of those extra starts to pad his WC win total. Because this is on the speculative side, no points given.
Bode’s wins are evenly spread across all the events. In fact, in late ‘04 he won convincingly in all four specialties within less than a month. Not since Jean-Claude Killy had someone shown such versatility and speed at the same time, so point Bode.
WC wins aren’t the only measure. Olympic medals. Phil owns Olympic Gold . . . laying it down in the biggest showdown in the sport. Bode doesn't. Point-and-a-half Phil.
But here’s the real biggie . . .
. . . but you gotta’ wait just a sec while I tell you a quick story. A couple years ago, somebody started this thing up with me that Bode was already at that time, the hands down best-ever American. For proof, he served me up the fact that while Bode had just won the World Cup Overall title, Phil had never done so. And he was right – Phil didn’t win a World Cup Overall, he won three of them. This fellow really didn’t know that, which is ok for an average fan – but not for somebody posing as qualified to argue ski racing history.
So there’s the big one, the main reason (the trump card, actually) why I think Bode’s still got a little way to go.
Now I know that Bode says that records, medals, and bullets on the bio don’t matter to him. And I honestly think that’s very cool if it’s not just talk – but I guess that, by definition, it eliminates Bode himself as a participant of the debate (not that I think Phil will be hiring a publicist). But, sorry Bode, I’m afraid that to award the title of “best ever”, we need tangible facts, and not just whether a racer felt good about his own trip down the mountain.
I would like to hear some well-thought-out arguments for one or the other – supported by accurate facts, so fire away! (See “Add Comment”, below.)
Regardless, isn’t it cool that we can even have a debate about such huge success for American ski racing on the world stage? Both these guys have plowed a path for future U.S. skiers. Instead of Phil or Bode, history may someday pick a name we haven’t yet heard – but even if that happens, both these guys will deserve some of the credit.
Cary Adgate - BOYNE SnowSports Ambassador
