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Bode Speaks: Skier suggests Armstrong on dope
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany - Here we go again with Bode Miller. Just as the brash World Cup champion skier decided to skip this weekend‘s events to rest up for the Turin Games and get away from media scrutiny, Miller suggested in an interview with Rolling Stone that Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds‘ agent, Jeff Borris, declined to respond to Miller‘s comments. Telephone and email messages left with Armstrong representatives were not immediately returned Thursday.
Miller, who competed in 136 straight World Cup races and last missed a race in March 2002, will skip the downhill and super-G this weekend. The U.S. Ski Team hopes Miller‘s short vacation, during which he plans to rest and play golf with younger brother Chelone, will help him focus before next month‘s Olympics.
Chelone Miller suffered severe head injuries in a motorcycle crash three months ago in New Hampshire.
"The drug-regulation system is a weird, bad system, and all I‘m asking is that we talk about it," he said.
Miller told Rolling Stone that he‘s worried someone will try and frame him for substance abuse. In October, he infuriated officials by calling for liberalized doping, and was fined last month for refusing to take a routine boot test after a World Cup slalom race.
He apologized for those comments in Wengen, Switzerland, but was fined the following day for completing a slalom despite straddling a gate. That night, Miller skipped the mandatory bib draw ceremony in the town square, prompting officials to give him a later start number for the next day‘s downhill.
At this point last year, Miller had six wins and four other podium finishes.
So far this season, he has one victory and four other top-three finishes. Adding to the frustration, Miller has only completed two of seven slaloms. Miller is currently fourth in the overall standings and trails overall leader Benjamin Raich by 264 points. Raich has 952 points, followed by Michael Walchhofer with 704 and Daron Rahlves with 689.
Miller plans to compete in all five events at the Olympics and is expected to race in Chamonix, France, on Feb. 3-4 — the final World Cup men‘s race before the Turin Games.
