All show-no go. All talk-no action. All hat-no cattle. You come up with your own analogy but has anyone in the history of sport been more over-hyped than this ski bum? And after getting DQ'ed yet again all he can talk about is his "Olympian performances in the local bars" and how he "rocked the night life". He also said he was satisfied with his performance. This guy is Babe Ruth with no stats. If Nike hasn't torn up his contract yet I'm sure they will at any moment. In a couple of weeks, if justice prevails, he'll be back waxing skis at a local Vermont mountain for the tourists.
Is this guy the biggest bust ever? He sure picked a bad two weeks to go into the tank didn't he. PJ in Jersey
Is it just me? Or did our American Olympic team have more than its fair share of braggarts, hotdogs, showboats, flip-flops and ski bums? So many of these characters acted like they were doing us a favor just by showing up. Sportsmanship, honor and fair play seemed to be alien concepts to most of them. I hope this changes or the Winter Olympics will go the way of the Dodo bird........ .............JO'Co
He could come to regret his attitude at these Olympics when he loses sponsers and perhaps is off the team. Not impressive at all. Gator Bill
No doubt Bode didn't perform well in the Olympics and his disdain for the the press is clear and his image has suffered hugely, but the suggestions that he hasn't accomplished anything, etc are a bit harsh and misdirected imho. Let's not forget the guy is the reigning world champion, a feat much more difficult to achieve than an Olympic Gold and one that hasn't been accomplished by Americans more than a couple times in history - and not in over 20 years. Bode is known for flaming out - dnf - often, indeed during his world championship run, I believe he had 11 races that he did not finish....comething of a record I believe. That said, he also wins more races - in all events - than anyone else in the world and unless or until someone takes his World Cup title from him, he'll continue to be considered the world's best ski racer....he just didn't get it done in the Olympics.
I think his problem is that in the US, at least, the World Cup is a non-event. Well I'm sure there are some ski-enthusiasts out there who follow it, but it's a decidedly minor sport. So all his antics were unknown to the general public, which hasn't taken well to his failure. The funny thing is that the public loves a successfull bad boy, like a Joe Namath, and if he'd won some gold medals along with the party on dude attitude he'd been a huge hit and struck a motherload of endorsements. But he didn't and the public hates a bad boy failure, even if it is only in the Olympics. Terry
You're right TOK....ski racing is not widely followed in the US and if you don't perform well in the Olympics, it doesn't matter what you do the rest of the year because the popular perception is that there is no rest of the year....in actuality, world cup ski season runs from October to March at stops all over the globe and to win a world cup championship is vastly more difficult to win than any single stop . The Olympics are but one stop on the schedule every few years.....a big stop, for sure, but still a stop. A reasonable analogy would be in Nascar racing....if you win the driving championship but didn't win at Daytona would you be a bust???? Terry
I don't consider Bode a complete bust. However I think his attitude lacks something. I wish him well in the future but at this point think he could well flame out early. Let's home he gains some maturity. Gator Bill
Hey, JO'Co, let's not overlook Joey Cheeks donating his $25,000 bonus to Sudanese children...I heard somewhere that with some matching endorsements that figure actually turned into about $300,000. Screw the Ugly American talk...show me an athlete from another country who matched that. :!: stu
I agree, Stu. Too much is made of the miscreants. Not enough is said about the positive side of the Olympics, which supercedes by far the negative elements. Unfortunately, JO'Co's premise is correct re: the attention given to the negative by the media. There certainly were enough negatives to keep the media hopping to put these me-first idiots, winners and non-winners alike, in front of the TV audience.
Sid and JO'Co, I agree completely...it is unfortunate that a few showboating, bad attitude, me first types grab all the headlines... That's the way of the world, unfortunately. But I don't think that sportsmanship, fair play, and honor are concepts that are foreign to "most of them"...only a (prominant) few. stu