Miller says he'll likely retire after this season

Bode Miller said that this racing season might very well be his last. The 29-year-old U.S. Ski Team star – who was making a charity appearance Saturday in Aspen, Colorado – said he nearly retired after last season but instead has reassessed his personal goals in the sport and spent most of the summer testing his new Head equipment setup in Europe.

“I was pretty much ready to stop,” Miller said. “I was ready to move on and do other stuff. As I thought about it more and more, I wanted to do one more year where I reassessed everything and addressed the issues I thought were holding me back from doing better.”

Miller said he is feeling good about his new equipment, on which he continued his slalom and giant slalom training last month in New Zealand with the U.S. Team. On Wednesday, he was set to join the team in Portillo, Chile, for speed training.

  ASPEN, Colorado – Bode Miller said that this racing season might very well be his last.

The 29-year-old was making a charity appearance Saturday in Aspen, Colorado, where he, at the request of 11-year-old Aspen racer Bobby Moyer, agreed to play in a golf tournament benefiting a local cancer survivor center.

Unlike most members of the U.S. Ski Team, who took four months off snow following last season to recuperate after the Olympics, Miller has been skiing in Austria and Italy throughout the summer, testing skis for his new sponsor, Head, with whom he signed a contract in July.

On Saturday, Miller said how close he was to putting an end to his ski racing career following the Torino Games — and even beforehand — but how he would like to reach a high point of personal assessment, which will likely mean just one more season.

“It’s all speculation, but I’m imagining that this is probably going to be my last season,” Miller said. “It was almost my last season last year. One of the only reasons I continued was because of that assessment decision.”

Miller has, for many seasons, emphasized that his way of measuring personal success has nothing to do with victories, results or medals, but centers around how he personally sizes up each of his race performances.

He has also acknowledged that others, namely the American public and the media, measure success by entirely different criteria.

“I was well aware of what I was heading into [last season]. The Olympics was a no-win situation for me,” Miller said. “All of the stuff building up to that was stuff I was aware of and wasn’t very happy about. But I got through it all. I felt good about the way it all turned out … to a degree.”

That said, it took Miller some thinking before coming around to wanting to put in another season.

“I was pretty much ready to stop,” he said. “I was ready to move on and do other stuff. As I thought about it more and more, I wanted to do one year where I reassessed everything and addressed the issues I thought were holding me back from doing better. Making that step was important before I quit. I didn’t want to have that question mark there. As an athlete, we spend enough time and energy getting to this point. You might as well max it out for one season. And then be able to move on.”

Miller said he is feeling good about his new equipment, on which he continued his slalom and giant slalom training last month in New Zealand with the U.S. Team. On Wednesday, he will join the team in Portillo, Chile, for speed training.