Nearly three months after suggesting he might skip the 2006 Turin Olympics rather than surrender the relative anonymity he enjoys on the American sports scene, World Cup overall champion Bode Miller has yet to commit himself to next year’s Games.
Miller has made two appearances on NBC’s “Today” show and one on “The Tonight Show” confessing misgivings about the Games, but his agent said he is confident Miller will compete. Miller would be a medal threat in five events, with a chance to become the Michael Phelps of Turin.
“I am not at all worried that Bode is not going to be in Torino in 2006,” said Miller’s New York-based agent, Lowell Taub. “He’s going to (express reservations) on his soapbox to get his point out there for as long as he has it, but he’s way too competitive to let Benny (Raich) and Hermann (Maier) and Daron (Rahlves) take his medals.”
Officials of the U.S. Ski Team are reluctant to go on the record, but privately they say they expect Miller to be part of the team in Turin.
Miller recently appeared on the “Today” show with several Winter Olympians and refused to be pinned down, even as figure skater Michelle Kwan used the occasion to announce for the first time she will be there.
“I don’t know,” Miller told Matt Lauer and Katie Couric. “I’ve sort of been wishy-washy a little bit, but I’m hoping to find the right kind of groove and get into it and be 100 percent.”
At the World Cup finals March 12 in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, where he became the first American in 22 years to win the World Cup overall title, Miller expressed skepticism about the Olympics and said he wasn’t sure he wanted to participate.
“The more I know about the sport, and the more I know about the Olympics, the less I think it represents what it claims,” Miller said. “There are a lot of things that are sucking my will to make that push right now. It’s going to be a matter of if I can remotivate myself and find out what it is that’s going to push me to do the Olympics next year. Hopefully it is a really good, pure reason, the way it should be when you’re trying to win gold at the Olympics.”
Kwan was unsure whether she wanted to pursue her third Olympics until she made that trip to New York.
“Hanging out with the rest of the athletes and sharing our Olympic experiences, I just say, why not?” Kwan announced on the show. “I’m going to go for it.”
Taub said Miller wants to be able to go out in public without being bothered. Miller is routinely mobbed in the Alps, where ski racing is a major sport, and he fears becoming a star at the Olympics could create the same scenario in the U.S.
“He’s beating his chest to say to America, ‘Being Paris Hilton or being Britney Spears, being followed around by droves of fans, is not the be-all and end-all,”‘ Taub said. “He’s the center of attention when he skis because he is the best, but he’s out there to ski fast, not for the adulation of the fans.”
