Even the best skiers can take some time to find their feet. the 250-plus racers from around the world who compete each year in World Cup events in Europe and North America rarely achieve their best form until December, two months into the racing season. But not Bode Miller. The hyperversatile American athlete has made a habit of winning races even before the first snow drifts down into the mountain valleys. This year, again, he started faster than the rest. Miller won six of the first 10 races of the season, and he did so in all four disciplines, from the highly technical slalom event to the nail-biting, death-defying downhill. The last time anyone did that was Marc Girardelli, skiing for Luxembourg in 1988. But Girardelli needed 71 days to accomplish the feat. Miller, characteristically, took just 16. "I find my groove pretty quickly," Miller concedes with a shrug. He had just finished a day of downhill training and a late-night volleyball game to top it off. "Four or five days and I'm there," he says. "It's easy for me."

Going into skiing's world championships, which run through Feb. 13 in Bormio, Italy, the talented racer still leads the field in the overall World Cup Standings. In Bormio, he is the most serious threat to take a medal in each of the four racing disciplines and a favorite to defend the three medals he won at the last championships two years ago. On Saturday he opened the competition with an electrifying victory by a 0.14 sec. margin in the Super G. He is also, arguably, the most exciting skier to watch. "Bode Miller walks out the door and he is good," says Phil McNichol, head coach of the U.S. men's ski team. "He doesn't necessarily work harder. He is just naturally better than everybody else out there. He is inspiring to watch."

At least when he stays on his feet. For years, Miller crashed out of more races than he finished. Even this year, having entered seven slaloms, he has finished only one. Arms windmilling, hips back over his skis, poles in the air,

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) he often seems to be hurling himself rather than skiing down the mountain. "It's not exactly ski-instructor style," Miller admits. When showing training videos of his top racer to other team members, in fact, McNichol will cover the unwieldy upper half of Miller's body to show that his feet are still, usually, properly balanced over his skis.

And overall this season, especially in the high-speed, less technical events, Miller is staying on course and in control. Coaches credit his talent for recovering from hopeless situations. Miller has always been what some commentators call a "recovery artist," a skier who can pull himself back from the brink by sheer athletic ability. In early January at the Adelboden race in Switzerland, he skipped the warm-up run, lost his pole a quarter of the way down on his first run, nearly crashed at the bottom, and still finished just 0.18 sec. off first place. Toni Giger, head coach of the Austrian team, the best in the world, calls Miller one-of-a-kind. "He takes the full risk, but then he shows he can correct his mistakes," Giger says. "That's his strength."

Raised on a mountainside in Franconia, New Hampshire, Miller was home schooled until he was 8 and as a young boy spent every day on nearby Cannon Mountain. Miller was experimenting with different techniques in 1996 when a representative from ski manufacturer K2 handed him a pair of the new hourglass-shaped "side-cut" skis. At the Junior Olympics a week later, he was the first to use them. He won the Super-G and giant slalom — two speed events where the gates are spaced more widely apart than in ordinary slalom — by the unheard-of margin of more than 2 sec. each.

Endowed with boyish good looks and an easygoing manner — he's known to enjoy a few beers after a race — Miller has a huge fan following, especially in ski-mad Europe. Top European skimakers like Atomic use his face to sell their products. A Swiss poll conducted last month even rated Miller the most popular skier of his generation among all age groups.

Miller says he has never been able to get used to the celebrity status. His solution, though, is not to scale back on the tour but to spend more time doing what he loves best. He's skiing not just in all four disciplines, a rare accomplishment in days of increasing specialization, but in every race as well. "I want to get as much out of it as I can," he says. His coaches would prefer him to be more selective and take a more measured approach to each race. They worry that, otherwise, he'll burn out. He may. But then, as McNichol says, if he took a more measured approach to racing, "he wouldn't be Bode Miller."

• ANDREW PURVIS | Kitzbuhel
• Despite his unorthodox style, Bode Miller is the greatest skier of his generation — at least when he stays on his feet