The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia kick off Friday night with the opening ceremony. Just two days later will begin the Olympic farewell tour of Bode Miller. The American ski racer is already among the nation's greatest Olympians, and his record fifth Olympic tour will more than likely be his last. But while Miller is saying goodbye to the Games, a group of young freeskiers will be making their debut.
Miller has previously won five Olympic medals, tied with Italian Alberto Tomba for second-most ever won by an alpine skier. His 33 World Cup race wins rank seventh-most in history. And not only is Miller one of the greatest alpine racers of all-time, but he's also among the most well-rounded, with World Cup victories in all five disciplines. Along with Lindsey Vonn, Miller is one of America's two most popular skiers. With Vonn sitting out the Olympics with a knee injury, Miller is far and away the downhill team's biggest name.
The 36-year-old is also, against all odds, a legitimate threat this year. After missing the entirety of the 2012-13 season with a knee injury, Miller has stormed back with medal wins in three different events. He's not necessarily the most dangerous American - that title goes to Ted Ligety, who already has four World Cup wins this season - but he'll be in the biggest spotlight, particularly thanks to a legacy of disappointment.
Miller is arguably best known for a brash, bad-boy attitude. After a disastrous showing at the Turin Games in 2006, Miller talked about partying and skiing drunk. Of his five Olympic medals, just one is gold. And as his uncle put it in a recent ESPN story, Miller is possibly the greatest underachieving skier of all time; had he maximized his potential, says his uncle, he could have tripled his World Cup victories.
The extra scrutiny often directed at Miller makes the Sochi Games a much-anticipated farewell tour for the all-time great. And it's all but assured that the 2014 Games will be Miller's last. He's already one of the oldest skiers still competing at the World Cup level, and when the Games head to South Korea in 2018 he'll be 40.
But while Miller may have just one last shot at Olympic glory, there's a wave of American freestyle skiers ready to make their debut at the Games. This year the Olympics have added eight new events, two of which are exclusive to freeskiers: ski slopestyle and ski halfpipe. Formerly, the Olympics' only action snowsport was the snowboard halfpipe.
With the inclusion of the new freestyle ski events comes a barnstorming of young, high-flying Americans. And to be sure, they are very young. Of the Olympic freeskiing team's 16 members (eight in each discipline, split evenly between men and women), nine are not yet old enough to legally buy a beer. Halfpipe skier Aaron Blunck, who turns 18 in April, is the youngest male member of the team. Female slopestyle skiers Julia Krass and Maggie Voisin are even younger: Krass turns 17 in June, and Voisin 16 in December.
But while many of the younger Americans are not yet widely known to the American public, they have already become household names in the action sports community thanks to success at events like the X Games. In fact, all but three of the 16 skiers competed in January's X Games Aspen, with four of them taking home a medal.
One of those medal winners, and probably the biggest name on the team, is halfpipe skier David Wise. At the ripe old age of 23, he's among the older American freeskiers headed to Sochi. The Reno native has won gold in the superpipe at the last three X Games Aspen events plus a halfpipe gold at last year's FIS freestyle world championships, making him the favorite in Sochi.
The three Olympians to join Wise on the X Games podium were Nick Goepper, Maddie Bowman and Voisin. Goepper and Bowman each successfully defended 2013 golds, in the men's slopestyle and women's superpipe, respectively. Voisin won silver in the women's slopestyle, becoming the youngest skier to ever medal at the X Games. Seven more Olympic skiers took top-eight finishes, while an eighth, halfpipe skier Torin Yater-Wallace, qualified for a top-eight finish but pulled out of the finals due to injury concerns.
A year ago FORBES named Gus Kenworthy as a name that sports fans needed to know. The world's top-ranked freeskier is one of just two members of the U.S. Freeskiing
Needless to say, while the United States is losing one of its all-time greatest Olympians in Miller, the nation has plenty of incoming talent on the freestyle side of things.
