Miller ties for bronze in super-G

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - This medal mattered to Bode Miller.

Not so much because, at 36, his bronze in Sunday's super-G - behind winner Kjetil Jansrud and surprise runner-up Andrew Weibrecht - makes Miller the oldest Alpine medalist in Olympic history. Or even because he now owns six medals in all, the second-highest total for a male ski racer and tied for second among United States Winter Olympians in any sport.

The guy who for years and years insisted results don't mean much to him declared he actually did care about this one. The last year has been a difficult one for Miller: the death of his younger brother, Chelone, in April 2013; the court fight over custody of his infant son; the work it took to come back from left-knee surgery and return to the Alpine apex.

"It's almost therapeutic for me to be in these situations, where I really had to test myself, so I was happy to have it be on the right side of the hundredths," Miller said. "Some days ... medals don't matter, and today was one of the ones where it does."

He wiped away tears in the finish area after someone mentioned Chelone, a charismatic snowboarder who was 29 and hoping to make the U.S. team in Sochi when he died of what was believed to be a seizure.

"Everything felt pretty raw and pretty connected," Miller said, "so it was a lot for me."

Weibrecht couldn't help but be moved by his own journey, calling Sunday "probably the most emotional day of ski racing that I've ever had."

It also was an important day for the United States ski team. The Americans had managed to collect only one of the 15 medals awarded through the first five Alpine events of the Olympics before Weibrecht and Miller tripled their nation's total.

Through 28 starters Sunday, Miller and Jan Hudec of Canada were tied for second, about a half-second slower than Jansrud's run of 1 minute, 18.14 seconds. But then came the 29th racer, Weibrecht, who had come out of nowhere to win the super-G bronze behind Miller's silver at the 2010 Olympics, but since then has dealt with injury after injury, including to both shoulders and both ankles.

How stunning was this silver? In 95 World Cup races, Weibrecht never finished better than 10th. Yet he owns two Olympic medals.

"Hits the bull's-eye once every four years," is how Italy's Peter Fill put it.