Miller, Weibrecht drive home US ski dominance

Bode Miller stuck to his pre-Olympic predictions Friday by winning his second medal of the Games as the US ski team took another step towards dominating Whistler's alpine events.

Miller, who flopped at the Turin Olympics having won two silver medals in 2002, began his Vancouver campaign on a positive note Monday with an inspired bronze in the downhill.

Donning faster downhill skis for a super-G performance Friday which he later described as "stagnant", the 32-year-old still did enough to snatch the silver and take his Olympic medals tally to four.

Miller, who is as famous for his stunning skiing ability as his fabulous failures, is now just the fifth skier in Olympic history to medal in four of alpine's five events -- the downhill, super-G, giant slalom and combined.

A bonus for the US was upstart Andrew Weibrecht's bronze, after he set the pace starting in third and seeing a host of bigger contenders fail to get close.

"I was proud of the way I skied (but) I wasn't sure if the time would hold up," said Weibrecht, whose best result on the World Cup was a 10th in 2007.

Miller started with bib 11, replacing Weibrecht on the provisional podium with a run which, by his own tough standards, he felt happy with.

He came into the Games boldly predicting a medal in each event. Now he has two, and he has been beating himself up to try and improve his slalom.

"Once the momentum has built from a medal, you ride that, and you want to experience the moment in a pure way and not just be on the podium," said Miller.

With the super-combined (downhill/slalom), giant slalom and slalom still to come, Miller has been training for the technical event -- and feeling the pain.

"There's nothing I want to do more than win a slalom again," he said.

"I busted myself yesterday in slalom training, but that's the way it goes sometimes. The slalom's dangerous."

It might hurt, but Miller's efforts are a good omen for a US team which seems to be feeding off each other's success.

After Miller's downhill bronze Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso handed the US their first alpine 1-2 since the Sarajevo Games in 1984, in the women's downhill.

In 1984, when only three and not five men's and women's events were raced at the Olympics, the US ski team won five of the 15 medals and achieved two 1-2s.

The way things are going in Whistler, Austria's record haul of 14 medals from a total of 30 in Turin could now be a realistic target.

After only four of 10 events the Americans have won six medals, and in six of the events still to be raced Vonn, Miller, and combined champion Ted Ligety could win more.

"Another couple of medals, it's kind of like the national championships up here," Ligety beamed Friday after seeing Miller and Weibrecht take silver and bronze.

Miller offered an ironic explanation as to why the US were performing so well, but for many it wasn't far from the truth.

"Asides from the fact we're just better than everybody else? We got a group of young athletes who feed off that really easily," he said.

"As soon as you see your teammates experience that (success) it makes them reach for that a little bit more authentically. And they race more aggressively."