Bode Miller doesn't want to race in the 2010 Winter Olympics:

"It's highly doubtful that I'll be racing in 2010," America's top skier said in an interview Friday, "and even if I am racing in World Cup, I wouldn't go (to the Olympics). There's too much emphasis on winning,"

Yeah, there is too much emphasis on winning.  It's not like you grew up during the Cold War where almost every Olympic event was viewed as a matter of life and death by all Americans.

"Being the front man for it in the last Olympics, I thought it was terrible," he said. "That was the reason (my behavior) was so terrible, the reason I was a hard ass." 

"Hard ass" must mean something different in Bode's native New Hampshire, because, on the South Side, drinking all night with co-eds and phoning it in at work the next day earns you the moniker of "slack ass".  I should know because I'm an International Grandmaster Slack Ass.

"In my mind, I'm better than any other racer," he said. "I've been racing against those guys for five, 10 years. Given equal conditions, I feel I can beat those guys any day."

That is so profound.  Why do they even have to race?  They should have two skiers face-off in a mind battle, and we could imagine the race ourselves.  Bode's metaphysics surely destine him to the be the abbot of a serene Zen Buddhist monastery.  Except it will have nightly drunken parties with naked ski bunnies.  God Buddha bless him. -KD