Las Vegas swimmer Cody Miller overcomes obstacles on road to Olympics

Las Vegas swimmer Cody Miller’s journey to the Olympics was not always across smooth waters.

At about age 14, he was diagnosed with a rib deformity that affects his breathing. The condition, known as pectus excavatum, is compounded by mild asthma.

“It looks like I have a big hole in my chest,” Miller said.

But it hasn’t stopped the 24-year-old from moving within a second of the American and Olympic records in the 100-meter breaststroke. He arrives in Rio de Janeiro with a strong chance to medal in that event and perhaps the 4x100 medley relay.

“I tell people I don’t know any different,” Miller said. “A lot of other people had to overcome more difficult struggles than that. I always have to work harder than my competition.”

Miller’s drive developed with his father mostly absent from his life. Craig Miller dealt with addictions and had been estranged from the family since Cody was young, and later became homeless. This past Christmas Day, he was found dead in San Diego.

“My father unfortunately lost himself to drug and alcohol addiction,” Cody Miller wrote in a text message Wednesday to the Review-Journal. “He was a good man. He loved the water very much.”

Miller took a love for the water, too, and swam with it, rising through the junior ranks while at Palo Verde High School and with the Sandpipers of Nevada club team. Buoyed by his mother, Debbie, and coaches he embraced as father figures, Miller has reached the pinnacle of his sport with a realistic shot at bringing gold home to Las Vegas.

His main goal is to “get your hands on the wall first. It’s all about placing now,” Miller said last week as the U.S. team was wrapping up training at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

“It’s just steady progress,” he said. “The biggest thing is keeping everything consistent and keeping your eye on your goal. … I don’t dream much (of winning an Olympic gold medal), but I visualize a lot, especially the prerace and the actual race.”

RACING AND RECORDS

Miller hopes to finish the 100-meter long-course event faster than his 59-second personal best, just a blink off the American record of 58.94 set by his U.S. teammate, Kevin Cordes, in a semifinal heat in last month’s trials in Omaha, Nebraska.

The two had a bang-bang finish in the U.S. Olympic Trials finals, with Cordes nosing Miller by 0.08 seconds.

If the 5-foot-11-inch, 175-pound Miller shoots forward like a human bullet with his powerful arms, and his stroke mechanics click — pull, breathe, frog-kick, glide — he and Cordes could take a swing at the Olympic record of 58.46 set by South African Cameron van der Burgh at the 2012 London Summer Games.

Breaking the world record of 57.92 set by Great Britain’s Adam Peaty in 2015 is not out of sight, but dropping 1-second-plus would be a difficult feat considering the breaststroke is arguably the sport’s most difficult.

“You’ve got to have fun, work hard and try to break records. You’ve got to like what you do,” said Miller, a graduate of Indiana.

LAS VEGAS ROOTS

Reaching the Rio Olympics is the apex of a journey that began when Miller’s family moved from Billings, Montana, and he joined the Sandpipers as a 10-year-old. It continued with Palo Verde’s first state swimming championship in 2008. Then it crescendoed with record-breaking performances that ranked him No. 1 nationally in the breaststroke for his age group when he graduated in 2010.

“I wouldn’t be an Olympian if it wasn’t for that time and my father figures, Ron Aitken and Chris Barber,” he said, referring to his coaches. “I was just doing what they said.”

Barber, the Sandpipers head age group coach and a math teacher at Fertitta Middle School, where Miller was a student, said he knew “right away that Cody was going to be a solid swimmer. He had an exceptional kick. We knew he was one of those guys who was going to be an elite athlete.”

According to Sandpipers head coach Aitken, only one other swimmer from Nevada has gone to the Olympics — Tyler Mayfield, a former Bishop Gorman High swimmer and breaststroke champion for Stanford’s 1994 team.

“We couldn’t be more proud of Cody,” Aitken said. “We watched him become a champion starting in his early days. … Having an athlete come from Las Vegas and from our club is truly extraordinary.”

Brent Gonzalez, who has coached Palo Verde to four consecutive state championships, credits Miller with starting the winning tradition.

“It’s a great accomplishment to have a Palo Verde swimmer there at the Olympics,” Gonzalez said.

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2