TORINO: Alpine: Miller to race Olympic slalom, coach says, but maybe not Asia

TORINO: Alpine: Miller to race Olympic slalom, coach says, but maybe not Asia{mosimage}SESTRIERE, Italy – Bode Miller will race the Olympic men’s slalom on Saturday despite a minor ankle injury, his coaches said. But he may pass up on the World Cup races the next week in South Korea.

‘He’ll be making a decision on that pretty soon’ said the team’s head coach, Phil McNichol, on Wednesday. ‘It is questionable whether he’ll go to Asia or not.’

The men’s World Cup travels to Asia for two giant slaloms at Yong Pyong, South Korea, (March 4-5) and two slaloms at Shiga Kogen, Japan (March 10-11). After that, the men’s tour meets up with the women’s tour for World Cup Finals in Are, Sweden, (March 15-19).

The idea would be to ‘skip Asia and prepare for Finals’ said McNichol. ‘It would be to train and get ready to win races again’ he said.

Miller has all but given up the quest to defend his overall World Cup title from Benjamin Raich of Austria. Although Miller never said he wanted to defend it this year, he continued his habit of starting every World Cup race, right up until Schladming, where he snapped a 136-race attendance streak.

Raich leads the standings with 1,065 points to Michael Walchhofer’s 820 and Miller’s 748.

McNichol said Miller’s consideration of another break had preceded the ankle injury on Tuesday, which came in a game of basketball among his teammates.

‘It’s a minor ankle strain’ said McNichol, once the news had broken. ‘He’s good to go. That’s what I’m getting from our physical therapist.’

The U.S. Ski Team has tried to downplay Miller’s ankle injury. It may very well be minor, but the media is seizing on it nonetheless, in part because the team lost a little bit of credibility in the area of injury reports after sending out apparently misleading or inaccurate press releases regarding the knee injury Kristina Koznick suffered.