MEN Bode Miller
U.S. ALPINE SKIER OF THE YEAR
Bode Miller’s entire focus, after a belated decision to return to racing for the 2010 season,
was on the Olympics. With all due respect to
Ted Ligety for a hard-fought and well executed
season that led to the World Cup GS title, Miller
accomplished what he set out to do, harnessing
the energy of the Olympics for a bronze medal
in downhill, a silver medal in super G and a
gold medal in super combined. He became the
first U.S. skier to tally three medals in a single
Olympics and matched Aksel Lund Svindal for
the best showing of the 2010 Games. Miller
also won the Wengen combined and reminded
racers everywhere of what it’s like to ski with
100 percent heart.
MEN Eric Guay
CANADIAN ALPINE SKIER OF THE YEAR
Erik Guay collected the first Canadian World Cup title in 28 years. And if you want a little more perspective
on the incredible nature of that, he became just the third Canadian skier to win a Cup title. More than 40
years ago, Nancy Greene won titles (overall and GS) in both of the first two seasons of the World Cup in 1967
and 1968. In 1982, Steve Podborski tied for the downhill title when Peter Mueller won the last races of the
season, at Aspen, to nearly overtake him.
Guay came from way behind to wrestle the title away from Michael Walchhofer and Aksel Lund Svindal. It
was the end of a phenomenal attack that really started at the Olympics when Guay missed the medals by three
hundredths of a second in the super G. The closeness of the pressure-packed race inspired him, and he fulfilled
the long Canadian legacy of speed racing by taking plenty of risk the rest of the season, winning at Kvitfjell,
Norway, to keep himself in the hunt for the super G globe, and then winning the finale at Garmisch. When his
two competitors were unable to rise to the challenge he had set, he won the title and singlehandedly salvaged a
difficult season for the Canadians.
WOMEN Emily Brydon
CANADIAN ALPINE SKIER OF THE YEAR
The universe of ski racing is going to miss Emily Brydon. One
of the friendliest, most modest and affable racers on the circuit,
Brydon announced her retirement this season and competed in
her last World Cup race — the final super G in Garmisch-Parten-
kirchen — sporting a halo of maple leaves.
The Fernie native went on to win her seventh national champion-
ship race (the super G) at the end of March and wrapped up her
career with one of the things she’s wanted for a long, long time — a
podium at Lake Louise. Brydon landed back-to-back podiums in
this season’s downhill races in her native Canada at the beginning
of the season (she was second in the first race and third in the next).
She then landed three more top 10s: seventh in the Val d’Isere super
combined, 10th in the Haus im Ennstal downhill and ninth in the St.
Moritz super G. And she wraps up her career with nine World Cup
podiums, including one victory, in the 2008 St. Moritz super G.
