Cycling: Veteran still harbours hopes of Games ride

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Graeme Miller first turned the pedals in schoolboy races in Blenheim nearly 30 years ago.

Now, about 35 bikes later and after bouncing back from some nasty crashes, he is as keen as ever, even if still feeling the disappointment of having his hopes of another Olympics dashed last year.

The 1980 Moscow Olympics still rate as one of the greatest highlights - and biggest disappointments - for Miller, who ticked off his 41st birthday this week.

"It was great, and totally unexpected, when I was named as part of the pursuit team for Moscow," Miller said. "It was devastating when we were told we wouldn't be going."

(Most Western countries boycotted the Games because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).

Miller has always had to work hard to succeed.

"I never had the natural talent of my younger brother, Allan. I had to do 10 times the work he did. I played a big part in his training before he won his world junior title in 1983. It was me who dragged him by the ear to go out training.

"In many ways, it was like Ian and Michael Richards. One had the talent, the other the guts and determination."

Both succeeded.

Miller rates Michael Richards as the best track rider he rode with or against.

On the road, like most, he points to Jack Swart, Stephen Cox and, in South Island races, Brian Fowler as his toughest rivals.

Miller this morning lines up for the annual Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, but will use the race more as a promotional outing for long-time supporter Avanti than an all-out effort in the competitive "classic" section of an event which has attracted a record 6000 to the main (social) 160km trip around the lake.

Next month he will be back to the grind of long miles before returning to the United States (provided he can sign with a professional team) for another road season from his base since 1988, in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

It was in the United States where he had his first Olympic experience - Los Angeles in 1984.

He still hankers for a place in the New Zealand team for next year's Manchester Commonwealth Games, but accepts it will not be easy convincing the selectors he is worth another go.

"Two of the road selectors [Graham Sycamore and Gordon Sharrock] have been there virtually from the time I started," Miller said. "I don't hold grudges but I do speak my mind. That obviously does not go down with some of them.

"But I would like to know what I am expected to do if I am going to get selected for Manchester."

Many close to the sport would be happy to see Miller ride off into the sunset.

He reckons he would have done that had he been given the nod for Sydney last year. Now he is keen to address what he sees as unfinished business.

"Sydney would have been the perfect opportunity for me to call it quits. Instead, it cost me $10,000 to take my case to court. I did not want to walk away sour. Now I want to see a black-and-white selection policy. There is still too much grey."

The chance to repeat his 1990 success at the Auckland Commonwealth Games remains a driving force. It also brings out a rarely told story.

In the lead-up to the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, Miller was in outstanding form and went into the road race as the one to beat. He finished fifth.

Determined to do it his way in 1990, Miller deliberately "crept" in lead-up races, rarely showing out but at the same time convincing road coach Garry Bell he would "be right on the day."

The Games race around the streets of Avondale, Green Bay, New Lynn and Titirangi was a classic.

Miller got away, later waiting for Fowler, who was riding with the painful memory of the death of his father, killed in an accident in Christchurch days earlier, before they rode away to take gold and silver.

But still Miller struggled for public acceptance.

"It does not matter what I do, someone has always wanted to poke something at me. I got tarred with the bad-guy image."

Now, for the first time, Miller and his wife, Tania, are thinking about giving it away and having a family.

Miller said: "I would dearly love to give to something back to the sport, whether in coaching or promotion." But that, one feels, will have to wait until he has had one last shot at Games glory.