Bode Miller wants to feed off Olympic success

Associated Press

Fresh off a successful Olympics, Bode Miller is back for another World Cup season and unlike a year ago he has a full summer of training behind him.

He’s even lost some weight.

“Bode’s feeling healthy and he’s been training and conditioning much more than he did last year,” U.S. men’s coach Sasha Rearick said last week after a 10-day training block almost exclusively with Miller on Swiss and Austrian glaciers. “He’s in pretty good shape.”

Last year, Miller took the entire summer off while he considered retirement, then rejoined the U.S. Ski Team after racing independently for two seasons. Peaking in midseason, he won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Vancouver Games in super-combi, super-G and downhill.

The 2010-11 season opens this weekend with men’s and women’s giant slaloms on the Rettenbach glacier in Soelden, Austria.

Miller won the overall World Cup in 2004-05 and 2007-08 but has won just one race on the circuit the past two seasons — a super-combi in Wengen, Switzerland, in January, that geared him up for his Olympic performance.

“Last year was definitely just the Olympics,” Rearick said. “This season he wants to be out there and competitive every day.”

He has just turned 33 and many would suggest that Miller concentrate solely on speed events — the downhill and super-G. That’s not a view Miller shares.

“He’s training all events and plans on racing slalom, GS, super-G and downhill,” Rearick said.

While Miller did skip the U.S. team’s second summer camp in New Zealand, he came into Europe early to make up for lost time. That’s given him an opportunity to work out plans for his personal motor home.

When Miller left the U.S. team several seasons ago the main reason was that the squad saw his motor home as a source of division. Now it’s come to the point that the team is going to help him with logistical arrangements at races.