Miller a credit to American skiing

This is directed to Mr. Evan Pierce in regards to his column about Bode Miller ("The Expected Failure of Bode Miller," Feb. 27).

To start off with, I am a former member of Pennsylvania State Skiing Association and the United States Skiing Association for a period of eight years. I also trained for several summers at Whistle/Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada, with some of the lesser-known Canadian and American Olympians that were at Turin. Considering that, I watched every event from the Combined, Downhill, Giant Slalom, Super-G, and even the freestyle skiing events of moguls and ski jumping. Skiing is my life. I live it. I love it. I know it.

To consider Bode not medaling as a failure and his words/actions as direct contributors to that failure is trite and indecent. First of all, Bode making the U.S. Olympic team and qualifying for the Turin Olympics is in itself a triumph due to the overwhelming amount of talent in this world and in the United States today. Secondly, the winter sports in the Olympics have been perfected to a point where being .01 seconds slower will knock you off of the podium. That .01 is about as far as the tips of your skis to the tails. Third, the athletes from countries such as Austria, Switzerland, Finland, France and many others make Alpine and Cross-Country skiing their existences and why they walk upon this earth. Austria, for example, produces talent like Hermann Maier who eclipses all other countries' competitors due to his indomitable desire to be the singular entity of Alpine skiing medal positioning. They literally breed young talent to live the Alpine skiing life, whereas we, the United States, ski leisurely and train to become Olympians, and competitors only when we realize that we have ability. The Austrians, on the other hand, ski competitively from the start and train not to be competitors, but to champion the sport and the Olympic Games.

Bode Miller is an incredible athlete/talent/skier and his contributions to skiing history should be looked at as such. After all, every resort lodge has a pub, "Schussmeister's is a drinking club with a skiing problem," Ross Powers won Gold while stoned and if skiing got you any higher, the Federal Government would not legalize it.