Reply #9: You're making his point: YOU care about the medals. HE wants a great ski. [View All]

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"It is other people who want me to win medals," Miller said in an interview with Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper on Thursday. "The silver medals I won in Salt Lake City didn't give me anything. Last year I set myself the goal of winning the World Cup and lining up a long series of wins. It was my private challenge. This year I just want to enjoy myself. I could give up tomorrow without having the slightest regret. I could keep away from this world for a year and then perhaps start to feel the desire to prove something to myself again."
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Picabo's Take
I have never been a materialistic person and probably never will be. Yeah, my medals are extremely important to me, but I store them in my heart and my soul. The physical medals are in various safe-deposit boxes, and I honestly don't go get them unless somebody asks to see.
More important than just owning one or two is how it changes the way people treat you. When I won my first medal, my silver in Lillehammer, I was one of several people walking around with them. So while it was special, I didn't stand out that much.
It wasn't until my plane trip home, when I had two escorts meet me at the door and usher me into one of those special rooms where all the important travelers and wealthy business people hang out, that I realized how winning medals changed my life. They escorted me to my gate, and they weren't about to let me be with all the mainstream people I was used to hanging around with.
That's when it really hit me most. Everybody had said, "It's going to change your life," but I left Norway thinking, "No, I don't think so. I'm feeling pretty normal."
That red-carpet special treatment can make you feel really weird. And that's maybe where Bode's coming from on that one.
-Picabo Street is a two-time Olympic medalist in Alpine skiing and a contributor to NBCOlympics.com.


"Fame is almost a poison. I couldn't care less, in fact I lived better when I was a nobody," he said.

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He is also tipped for medals in giant slalom and slalom next week but said he refused to worry about other people's expectations.
"Some people say I make mistakes," Miller said. "I just say that in fact this is the secret of enjoying life. I hate monotony. Why don't they leave me freedom of choice? People want to impose choices which aren't necessarily mine. That's the mistake people make."
The 28-year-old Miller blamed outside pressures for the presence of doping in some sports.
"Sport is born clean and it would stay that way if it was the athletes who ran it for the pleasure of taking part, but then the fans and the media intervene and finish up by corrupting it with the pressure that they exercise," he said. "Anyone who isn't strong is left in a corner, no one asks for their autograph, they are abandoned in the cold shadows. Those who win, however, become icons.
"From this inhuman pressure doping is born because the athlete feels the imperative of having to be number one. I believe instead that sport should be a private pressure, a challenge for yourself."

http://www.nbcolympics.com/alpine/5111272/detail.html