A Nice Ski Lift From the Anti-Bode

Halfway up the hill stood the richest American skier, staring down at fans he does not like and reporters he can barely tolerate.

Down in the slush stood the poorest American skier, embracing smiles he’d rarely seen and cheers he could not believe.

Halfway up the hill, $5-million man Bode Miller was sneaking to his trailer after blowing his first slalom run and finishing his bankrupt Olympics.

Down in the slush, Chip Knight had paid $8,000 to be here, so he wasn’t going anywhere just yet, celebrating his first slalom run as if he had just won gold.

Miller did a mock victory pose.

Knight pumped his fists for real.

“This is awesome!” Knight said. “This is a dream!”

If the Olympics make you believe only one thing, it is this:

When richest competes next to poorest, it’s impossible to tell who is who.

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This column was supposed to bury Bode. Nothing is easier than burying Bode.

I took a 2 1/2 -hour bus ride up the mountain Saturday to chronicle the final race of the most overblown Olympic first name since Dan and Dave.

Twenty minutes after I arrived, 20 seconds after Bode Miller began, the story was done.

He straddled a gate near the top of the slalom course, immediately disqualifying himself, putting the finishing ouches on a hitless, hopeless, zero-for-five Olympics.

He was such an easy target, standing up there in ankle-deep disappointment while success streaked past him.

He was such a pathetic figure, the arrogant cover boy turned wet doormat.

He made his best run when he skied across the course and away from the media throng. His most athletic moment occurred when he was injured this week playing pickup basketball.

The guy who boasted that once he’d skied drunk? Well, yeah, we could tell.

The guy who condones steroid use? Well, finishing no higher than fifth while being disqualified in three of his five races, that’s one way to avoid drug testing.

It would be so easy to bury Bode because he had already buried himself.

The story was done.

Or was it?

Shortly after Miller collapsed Saturday, another American came down the hill. Only this one made it all the way.

Chip Knight finished his run. He was in 15th place. Only a couple of reporters stopped him. There was ice on his beard and light in his eyes.

“This has been a really tough year,” he said. “This makes it all worth it. If I get a medal, I’ll be the happiest dude out here.”

A tough year? Injury? Tragedy?

No, money.

It turns out, Knight, 31, a former Olympian, was in such decline that U.S. Ski Assn. officials pulled him aside this season and told him if he wanted to keep training, he would have to pay them.

That’s right, he was required to give them $8,000 for coaching and supplies if he wanted a chance to make the Olympic team.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but he was totally written off,” teammate James Cochran said. “This is a business, and a guy like Chip, getting on in years, they were like, ‘OK, I think it’s time to send him out to pasture.’ ”

Except, much to the surprise of everyone, Knight refused to leave.

Using revenue from his ski school near his home in Stowe, Vt., plus help from Stowe sponsors, he wrote a check to the ski team and returned to the lift.

Said Cochran: “I never would have done that. It’s amazing.”

Said Knight: “Yeah, I had to suck it up a little bit.”

Once he’d paid his entry fee, he had to produce, needing three top-20 finishes in World Cup events to qualify for the Games.

He didn’t reach that mark until the last race before the Olympics, and only after qualifying for the second slalom run by .05 of a second, and then only after finishing -- gasp -- 19th.

“If you had asked me at Christmas if I would be standing here, I would say ‘No way!’ ” Knight said, laughing.

Turns out, this was his Christmas. Even though his second run Saturday was not as strong as his first, dropping him into 18th place overall, he was beaming as he stood under a light snow that turned the hill behind him into a postcard.

“I think you have to actually be at the Olympics to understand it,” Knight said. “I think you have to be here to appreciate how it is different from every other competition, how it is so special.”

While Knight talked, Miller had finished talking, having conducted an interview with Jim Litke of the Associated Press during which he made it clear -- to no one’s surprise -- that he had accomplished his main Olympic goal.

That being, partying hard.

“I just did it my way. I’m not a martyr, and I’m not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock,” he told Litke. “And man, I rocked here.”

By all reports, he rocked late into the night, many nights.

But this day belonged to a different Knight.

“Bode is the superstar, but we’re not a team of superstars, we’re a team of average Joes,” he said.

That is probably the biggest shame of a Bode Miller, not what he lost, but what he stole, his presence sucking the attention from a U.S. team of average Joes whose stories were also worth telling.

“I am so honored and proud to have Chip Knight as a teammate,” Cochran said.

Of all the things said about Bode Miller in these last two weeks, that wasn’t one of them, the line between the richest and poorest Olympians once again as blurred as a mountain’s white sky.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.