When Cody Miller found out that the 50 strokes were officially added to the Olympic program, he was pumped.
Pumped enough to make a comeback?
The Olympic gold medalist has other plans, though he wouldn’t rule out a fun swim.
“I consider myself retired. I swim a few days a week and go to some Masters meets, but I am pretty much done,” Miller told Swimming World. “I will say, it would be fun to make a Trials cut and make the meet. Maybe I will be working the meet, who knows? I think that would be fun. But I am very happy about the 50s being added. I have been screaming from the rooftops about this.”
Miller got a taste of the broadcasting side of the sport, sitting with Rowdy Gaines, and enjoyed it.
“I would love to do some broadcasting. I am going to start doing some with Rowdy in the future. That will be really fun and a great experience. I just want to remain close to the sport in whatever capacity it is,” Miller said. “Being at NCAAs was just fun. I would love to stay involved and I think that would be a lot of fun. I don’t know what the future holds, but keep swimming and doing YouTube videos, doing clinics and we will see what it looks like.”
But Miller said the 50s will completely change the sport in a positive way.
“Taking age-group swimming out of the equation, there is no down side, from professional swimming to viewership – all the ingredients to help us trend in the right direction, and we have been trending in the wrong direction. That can only help,” Miller said. “It is going to increase longevity in the swimmers after college because now, you don’t have to be a sprint freestyler to train for this. You can’t train 45 minutes a day for 100-meter races, but you can for 50s. You can be a postgrad, have a fulltime job, swim an hour a day and can compete for an Olympic team. That will open up the doors.
“Sprinting is fun and exciting. The 50 freestylists hang out the longest because they can. Now you will have everyone able to do that. Keeping sprinters like Gretchen Walsh around more is only a good thing.”
Miller has been able to stick around longer because of his YouTube channel, which is extremely popular.
“It definitely increased my longevity in the sport a lot,” Miller said. “I was lucky enough to not have to be one of the top 20 swimmers in the world to make money. There is a lot of stress now on swimmers who don’t have a strong social media following to be fast all the time, because if you aren’t, you don’t make funding. I was lucky to have more sponsors than other swimmers because of my YouTube channel. It was able to provide for me and my family.”
He is hoping increased longevity for the stars of the sport helps USA Swimming at the Olympic level.
“It is very important that Team USA does well. We did well at the last Olympics, but not as well as we wanted. Now that we are on home soil, it is important for the growth of USA Swimming for us to do well. And I think we will,” Cody Miller said. “I am more excited than anything.”