ON THE LAST DAY OF TRAINING before World Cup officials shut the Sölden GS course down to groom it for the season opener, the gossip in the gondola line was about the American world champion, who still hadn't shown up. "Is Bode here?" an Austrian coach asked an American traveling with the team. "How's his brother?"

A week earlier, Miller's younger brother, Chelone, had nearly been killed while riding his motorcycle without a helmet. He'd crashed on a gravel road near the family home in New Hampshire and sustained serious head injuries. Miller delayed his trip to Austria to stay with him. The 2005 champ was expected to arrive by the end of the week—his brother was stable but still in serious condition—but nobody knew for sure. Bode lives on Bode time.

As Rahlves, Knight, Ligety, and their teammates gathered at the top of the training course, a guy with a blue Barilla helmet and a big smile barreled into the lineup.

"Look who's here!" Knight said.

"What's going on, boys?" said Bode Miller.

"When'd you get in?"

"This morning."

"Fuckin' A." He hadn't even stopped for breakfast.

"I'm hard," Miller said. "You know I'm hard."

Just then a mob of Austrian kids caught up to Miller. "Bode Mee-lah! Bode Mee-lah!" they shouted. Miller graciously signed their helmets and gloves. It's always a shock to be reminded of how famous both Rahlves and Miller are in Europe. Rahlves is NBA All-Star famous; kids approach him shyly. Miller is rock-star famous; kids shout his name and tumble over one another, astonished to find themselves so close to their hero. Miller isn't just good; he's historically great. Only two men have ever won in all four disciplines in a single season: five-time overall champion Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, who ruled the World Cup in the eighties and early nineties, and Miller.

The ski god signed the last helmet and plunged down the course, still wearing a fleece vest and baggy shorts over his spandex; everyone else was in a one-piece skin suit. "He's in his clothes," one of his teammates said. "That means he'll only beat us by a full second."

Some aspects of Miller's greatness are evident to the naked eye. On the Sölden GS course, for example, I watched every racer come down holding a tuck until the fifth gate, after which they sprang upright, gaining control but losing speed. Miller not only held his tuck through the fifth gate; he kept it through the sixth.

One morning, I listened to Miller and Rahlves discuss how to overcome a challenging section on the course. "Down bottom, that delay, you gotta keep rippin' it, man," Rahlves said. Miller responded with a string of technical terms that were impossible for me to comprehend.

"Trying to understand Bode's skiing is like trying to understand superstring theory," says Chip Knight. "We all watch and go, ‘How the hell does he do that?' " Greg Needell has watched hundreds of hours of Miller on video. His conclusion: "No other skier, ever, has had Bode's instinct for sensing where the fall line is. And no other skier has Bode's physical ability to put himself there."

If Miller was the prodigy, marked early for greatness, Rahlves was the quintessential American champion. He struggled for years before making the team, scraping his way to the top through determination and hard work. He understood how everything mattered and how the little things added up. One day I watched Rahlves finish a run at Sölden. Instead of standing while he spoke with his ski tech, as most racers did, Rahlves sat on a stool and splayed his legs to rest his muscles. Speed is in the tiniest details.

While Rahlves is the team's cool, mature leader, Miller induces more ulcers than any racer since battlin' Bill Johnson. Last year Miller blasted the unfairness of the World Cup system—top guys like him make $3 million a year while racers like Ligety struggle to get by—and threatened to start his own tour. Before the 2005–06 season, he caused a commotion by declaring that performance-enhancing drugs like EPO ought to be legal to help athletes avoid career-ending injuries. And coaching? Don't bother him with it.

"Skiing at this level is a lot less about coaching than anybody thinks," Miller says. "There's not a lot a coach can do other than help with race-day routines."

That isn't to suggest that Miller won't offer his own coaching to teammates, solicited or not. "A lot of the guys are my good friends, and I want to see them do well," Miller told me after practice one day. "But they really just do not respond well to a peer giving them any kind of advice or criticism. The fact is, I've taken a much more proactive role in my situation, and that's led to getting better results. It's basic stuff like nutrition, rest, having your own space. [Miller travels on the World Cup in his own motor home.] I tell them if they want to really take their best shot, they've got to do the same. But the guys just don't fucking address it. They're just like, ‘Oh, I listen to my coach. If it was important, the coaches would bring it up.' "

It's a little like Ted Williams wondering why the rest of the Red Sox can't just hit the damn ball like he does. Veterans like Rahlves, Schlopy, Knight, and Spencer have known Miller long enough to shrug it off.

What's taken more getting used to is Bode's life in the spotlight.

"As Bode has become more successful, he gets pulled in more and more directions, and that can detract from the team," says Dane Spencer. Miller's outspokenness doesn't particularly bother him or other guys on the team, Spencer adds. "What's frustrating is we don't get to see him as much, and don't get the opportunity to train with him as often."

That's a frustration for the coaches, too. It's a common belief in the ski-racing world that speed breeds speed: Training with the top dogs forces everyone around them to run that much faster. "When Bode and Daron are both around, you can feel it," says Greg Needell. "Guys lift their games. Everybody wants to beat the best in the world."