Judd's Olympic Notes: Miller eyes rebound

By this time next week, we'll know how deep the early season cracks really run in America's alpine-skiing iceman.

Bode Miller, the defending overall World Cup champion, has an almost-legendary knack for recovering from small mistakes and blowing away competitors on his next run — if not the latter half of the same one.

But he was considerably off his game this past weekend in Lake Louise, Alberta, finishing 22nd in Saturday's downhill after a near fall right out of the gate, and 18th in Sunday's Super-G, where Miller went down on one hip at mid-course.

That leaves last month's second-place giant slalom finish in Austria as Miller's only podium of the season. By this time last year, the New Hampshire phenomenon had three victories under his belt on the way to the first overall World Cup crown by a U.S. skier since Phil Mahre's second title 22 years earlier.

Miller and his coaches say they're not worried: Conditions were bad at Lake Louise (mostly manmade snow, persistent fog and flat light), and Miller made a couple of small mistakes. They look to rebound this Thursday through Sunday in Beaver Creek, Colo., where the World Cup makes its only U.S. stop of the season for the Birds of Prey Super-G, downhill, giant slalom and slalom.

Miller owned those races last year, and teammate Daron Rahlves, who rescued the U.S. reputation somewhat with a third-place finish in Sunday's Lake Louise Super-G, wasn't far behind. The duo finished 1-2 in last year's Birds of Prey downhill.

Miller, a two-time silver medalist at Salt Lake in 2002, will be a favorite in four events at the Turin Games in February. Rahlves is a solid contender for a speed event (downhill or Super-G) medal of his own.

YOUNG GUNS: Some young faces did shine through the fog up in Lake Louise this past weekend. Chiefly, the strapping, insanely fast Aksel Svindal, the latest superskier from Norway, who won Sunday's Super-G, nipping Austria's Benjamin Raich.

But America's lesser-known made their own mark in Saturday's downhill. Former alpine Junior World champion Steve Nyman, 23, of Utah finished 14th, the top U.S. result. And Redmond's Scott Macartney finished 24th, a solid finish for the former Crystal Mountain racer.

America's alpine Olympic ski team will be named Jan. 25.

ROUGH SLEDDING: Doubles luger Christian Niccum of Woodinville, fighting for an Olympic spot, already has had one close encounter with the Olympic track at Cesana Pariol, near Turin.

A bit too close.

Niccum and doubles partner Patrick Quinn were taking training runs in Italy on Nov. 15 when they decided to try out a different sled. They began to feel trouble coming out of curve 14, and by the start of curve 16, the sled went out of control, resulting in a curve 17 high-speed crash.

Niccum, 27, spent the night in a local hospital, where he was treated for a concussion. He has missed the last two World Cup races.

Team spokesman Jon Lundin said Niccum was to meet with U.S. team physicians at Lake Placid yesterday and is expected back on the ice in time for the Dec. 8-10 luge World Cup stop in Calgary. That means he's still in the hunt for a spot on the Olympic roster.

SKI TV: Race fans can watch it all develop on OLN's "10 Weeks to Torino" show, which will provide 90 minutes of weekly taped race coverage and athlete features all the way up to the Olympics. It airs at 2 p.m. Sundays in Seattle, and other race coverage might appear at other times. See www.olntv.com for complete scheduling.

This Sunday's show will include taped coverage of the Beaver Creek Super-G, GS and slalom. Saturday's Beaver Creek downhill will be aired by NBC at noon PDT.

BACK FROM THE DEAD, PART ONE: Maybe Fritz Strobl should just cut to the chase and build a house in Aspen. The Austrian downhiller has made a literal career out of winning in the Rocky Mountains.

Strobl snatched the downhill gold medal at Snowbasin during the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, then faded back into the woodwork. At least until Saturday, when he reemerged to win the downhill in less-than-sterling conditions in Lake Louise. Strobl edged out Norwegian stalwart Kjetil Andre Aamodt by nine-hundredths of a second.

BACK FROM THE DEAD, PART TWO: The overall World Cup points leader after three races? None other than Hermann Maier, the Austrian legend whose recovery from a near-fatal 2001 motorcycle accident ranks as one of the greatest comebacks in all of sport.

Maier won the opening World Cup giant slalom on home snow last month — his 51st career World Cup victory. That puts him only one behind the all-time leader, the great Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden. MIXED DOUBLES: Like most of her teammates, U.S. bobsled driver Jill Bakken, a Kirkland native and defending gold medalist, has lived much of the past half-dozen years out of a duffel bag, jetting between training facilities and World Cup race sites in Europe and North America.

But these days, her home away from home is Calgary, Alberta, which offers two solid attractions: One is a world-class bobsled track. The other is her boyfriend, Florian Linder, a Canadian bobsledder.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com.