SKIING-BODE MILLER Whether racing or not, Miller to be on slopes next season

Record ID: 151125

  • Title: SKIING-BODE MILLER Whether racing or not, Miller to be on slopes next season
  • Date: 15th June 2015
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JUNE 15, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMERICAN SKIER BODE MILLER SAYING: "I think everyone has their own place in the greater scope of the sport. To think that I'm unique in that way I think it would be a little bit unrealistic. There's always somebody better and younger and faster, and . . . you know, you hold records really mor
  • Embargoed: 30th June 2015 13:00
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  • Story Text: American showman Bode Miller, one of the greatest and most controversial skiers of all-time, will return to the slopes next season either racing or coaching.
    "I love this sport and I think I have a lot to offer still and the fact that the ski team supports me and nominates me, I think is a testament to our relationship. It's been a long time and there's been all kinds of ups and downs," Miller told Reuters on Monday (June 15) while in New York to promote a special collaboration with Cuervo Tequila ahead of Father's Day.
    "If I can get healthy and I'm happy doing it, then I'll race and if not then I'll contribute in the ways that I can in the way that they [U.S. Ski Team] want me to."
    After crashing out of the alpine ski world championships in February, Miller, needed surgery to repair a tear in his hamstring tendon from the nasty fall in the Super-G. Despite the injury and the recovery needed for his 37-year old body, Miller received and accepted a nomination to the U.S. Ski Team for the 2015-16 season in May.
    "I haven't really tested it so I can't really say how my leg has healed from the injury in February, but the times where I have tested it -- I've played some tennis and done some moderate work outs comparatively to what I would normally be doing -- it's held up fine," said Miller about his leg.
    "But, it's one of those injuries that unfortunately you don't find out that it's not perfect until it gets pushed right to the limits to where it should hold up and it doesn't," he said.
    "As of right now, it feels okay and I feel like, more or less, I'm recovered."
    Long a favorite performer on the White Circus, Miller has spent his career entertaining fans and bristling at authority often at odds with the U.S. ski team and the International ski Federation.
    At one point, he broke away from the U.S. association and started his own team traveling to races in a recreational vehicle that became known as the Bode-mobile and once threatened to start his own race circuit.
    Miller has since reconciled with the U.S Ski team and Olympic program and has begun to look at his participation in alpine racing after the end of his competitive career.
    "I think there's value there in terms of representing the ski team and sharing my knowledge with the younger racers. Those are things that the ski team hasn't been great at before in terms of integrating experienced racers into the program to make sure that they share the knowledge and pass that down to the next generation and I think that's a critical part to longevity and success over time."
    Above all, Miller is a ski racer, unorthodox and brilliant winning medals in all five alpine disciplines, one of only five skiers (men and women) to do so.
    His resume includes six Olympic medals (one gold), five world championship medals (four gold), 33 World Cup wins and has twice been crowned overall World Cup champion.
    "I think everyone has their own place in the greater scope of the sport. To think that I'm unique in that way I think it would be a little bit unrealistic. There's always somebody better and younger and faster," Miller said about the breadth of his talent.
    "You hold records really more as a rental program than as owning them. You rent them until somebody else comes in and takes them from you."
    "There is value to what coaches would call 'spreading yourself too thin' and they want you to focus and hyper-focus and you see that in sports of all sorts across the country for young kids," Miller explained.
    "That's no philosophy that any parent would put their kid into and I just lived that philosophy all the way up to the very top and I think that was something that was very important to me and I think I have shared that with a lot of racers and I think, in general, I tried to share it with the world that that is, that has value there and it might not be as chronologically correct or objectively measurable, but there is some value there that I appreciate."
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