The parents, Jo and Woody Miller, insist they raised their son, Olympic alpine skier Bode (BO-dee) Miller, to be independent. The uncle, former American circuit skier Mike Kenney, laughingly calls his nephew's upbringing "borderline negligence."

Whatever, it produced a free-spirited 24-year-old who's a threat to win gold in all five alpine events in Salt Lake City next month.

The Millers never had cable in their Easton, N.H., cabin. They didn't even have electricity or running water -- "anti-consumerism," explains Jo. Bode, left to entertain himself, spent his time riding cheap skis down the steep slopes of nearby Cannon Mountain, 50 miles south of the Canadian border.

There, he learned to ski with a John Daly grip-it-and-rip-it mentality and talk with John McEnroe-like abandon off the slopes.

Miller's emergence comes as a minor surprise. Four years ago in Nagano, he notched DNFs in both slalom and giant slalom. Last February, he tore his left ACL in a nasty crash at worlds in St. Anton, Austria. He attributes his 1998 flop to youth (he was 20); he credits his body's resilience for his remarkable rehab from the ACL injury. (He was skiing four months later.)

His daredevil technique can mean crashes and falls, but when he stays on his feet, not many can keep up with him. Miller's raw speed allows him to erase mistakes other skiers can't recover from.

During his World Cup giant slalom victory on Dec. 9 in Val d'Isère, France, he fell at the start of his second run, yet bounced back up and won by .02 seconds, becoming the first American man to win the event in 18 years.

"I need to be more consistent," says Miller, exhibiting a talent for understatement. "But I have the speed. There's no question about that."

This article appears in the January 21 issue of ESPN The Magazine.