ROSA KHUTOR, Russia (Feb. 16) - In an historic and seemingly improbable finish, Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) took silver and Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) tied for bronze in the men's Olympic super G at Rosa Khutor Sunday. After taking the lead out of the number 13 start, Miller watched in wonderment as teammate Weibrecht put down a breathtaking run out of the 29th start position to claim silver behind Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud. The race airs on NBC at 7:00 p.m. EST and can be streamed in its entirety on NBCOlympics.com. The women are up next, set to race giant slalom on Tuesday Feb. 18.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) took silver and Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) tied for bronze in the men's Olympic super G at Rosa Khutor.
- After taking the lead out of the number 13 start, Miller watched in wonderment as teammate Weibrecht put down a breathtaking run out of the 29th start position to claim silver behind Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud. Miller tied for bronze with Jan Hudec of Canada.
- Miller now has six Olympic medals, proving once again that he is one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. He has the most medals among U.S. alpine skiers, for both men and overall. He moves into second all-time for U.S. winter Olympians, tying Bonnie Blair and trailing Apolo Anton Ohno's eight.
- Miller is also the oldest medalist in Olympic alpine skiing at 36 years 127 days, surpassing Aamodt who was 34-170 in 2006.
- Weibrecht becomes the fourth American male (Miller, Phil Mahre, Tommy Moe) with two or more medals in Olympic alpine skiing.
- That makes back-to-back Olympic super G medals for Weibrecht after his bronze in 2010. He has never been on the podium at a World Cup or World Championships. His best World Cup finishes were two 10th place results, one in 2007 and one 2011, both of which occurred at Beaver Creek.
- Sunday's two medals boost the USA to 16 total, putting America ahead in the total medal count in 2014.
- Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) and Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) also raced in Sunday’s super G, finishing 14th and 23rd respectively.
- The race airs on NBC at 7:00 p.m. EST and can be streamed in its entirety on NBCOlympics.com.
- Sunday’s super G was the final alpine speed race of the 2014 Sochi Games.
- The women are up next, racing giant slalom on Tuesday Feb. 18.
QUOTES
Bode Miller
I think I came out and skied really aggressive, but too aggressive for this hill. I made a mistake on the bottom here that was just stupid. There’s nothing really to do once you come off of Lake Jump. You basically get in your tuck and go to the finish. My mind was still looking for hundredths of a second. I pushed too hard and ended up costing myself half a second or six tenths, and that’s always tough. But to hang onto a medal today, I feel really lucky and very fortunate.
I’ve never been stuck on counting medals, but for me, I’ve put in a lot of work. This was a really hard year with a lot of effort coming back to get fit and get ready and just battle through everything life throws at you. To come out and ski hard–this is almost therapeutic for me to be in these situations where I really get to test myself. So I was happy to be on the right side of the hundredths. Some days medals don’t matter, and today was one of the ones where it does matter.
I’ve skied with Andrew a lot of times and he’s so much better than his results show on World Cup. He’s one of the guys who could consistently win three events. He’s just an unbelievable talent. The one thing he losses out on is the intensity, and that’s why he does so well at the Olympics because everyone is focuses on him, he has tons of emotion and he lets his emotion out. He’s usually pretty reserved emotionally. He doesn’t connect skiing with emotion; he just skis with huge intensity normally. I think here he really connects the emotion to it, and that’s why he gets such crazy performances out of himself.
Andrew Weibrecht
It’s unbelievable. I came down and I knew I had skied well. I knew I had a good run. I came through the finish I just sort of appreciated my run and I took a couple seconds and looked at the time. I saw second, looked away and then I looked again and I saw it and was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ It’s been a rough couple years with all the injuries and everything else, but this makes up for it.
This is probably the most emotional day of ski racing that I’ve ever had. All the issues and troubles that I’ve had, to come and be able to have a really strong result like this, it reminds me that all the work I did to come back from the injuries and just dealing through all the hard times, that it’s all worth it and it all makes sense. There have been times I’ve had to evaluate whether this is really what I want to do, even as recently as yesterday. There are only so many times you can get kicked before you really feel it. I try not to focus on the results, but I really needed a result to remind me that I’m capable of this and that I belong here.
Sasha Rearick, Men’s Alpine Head Coach
Bode made a little mistake that cost him on the bottom and we radioed that up to Andrew and then Andrew put it all together by just going for it–amazing skiing. Andrew has always been a tremendous skier. After his bronze medal in Vancouver, in his very next race he hurt his shoulder. He toughed it out during the start of the next season, but early in the season he had to have surgery so he missed the next season. He has struggled in downhill but he’s kept focused on super G. Even last night when he saw the draw it was tough, he had to keep fighting. All I asked him to do was to beat the guys around him. Fortunately the guys around him were fast. He did a hell of a job. I’m very, very proud of the whole team
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