Sprained ankle could keep Miller out

VAL GARDENA, Italy -- I sprained my right ankle playing volleyball on Saturday evening. It was just one of those things. It was crappy luck. It was me and a dude on my own team going up to block. When we came down we were right next to each other and I landed right on top of his foot. Almost all my weight was coming down on that foot so it was pretty bad. It was a good twist.

My ankle is still pretty swollen today. Until I can get the swelling to go down, I'm not going to be able to ski. I don't know how long that will be. It's always kind of a question mark. It's really hard to guess with those things. I didn't ski GS on Sunday because there was no way I could fit my ankle into a boot. It was just too swollen.

I had pretty good finishes Friday and Saturday in super combined and super-G, but they were just days really. It wasn't anything special. No one could really do much because the weather wasn't great for us. In the super combined, I was trying to get down and make it to the finish because I had no points. To start outside the top-30 in the super combined when there's super-G is a pretty significant disadvantage. The guys who were right in there on that day were mostly guys who typically don't do that well in speed events. They just took advantage of running in the first early group when the light was good.

It was the same thing the next day in the super-G. Running late made a huge difference to running early. The light was bad again and it was snowing while we raced. That's just been the case this year. There's been a lot of weather coming in on race day. Both days I was just kind of making it down tactically. It was fine but it wasn't that fun. None of the races there were enjoyable. They were pretty miserable for everybody -- even the guys who won I think.

I'd be surprised if I can get into a boot in time to run the training runs in Italy this week but it's possible. I'm going to go see a friend of mine who does acupuncture over here tonight and see if he can help me. We'll see how that goes. It's a pretty bad sprain. Normally it takes a couple weeks to get better. I generally heal pretty fast. The pain isn't really the issue because I can usually ski even if it hurts a bit. It's just the swelling. You have to get the swelling down enough to fit  your ankle into the ski boot. The ski boots are so tight anyway, there's just not a whole lot of extra room in there.

The downhill course in Val Gardena is pretty basic. It would actually work in my favor in this case with my ankle being hurt. It's pretty mellow -- it's not usually real chattery or bumpy. There's really only one big jump but there's a couple smaller jumps that could be a little bit of an issue. It's a bit of a gliders course. You have to have your skis dialed in. You're susceptible to weather there because even if there's only a little bit of wind, there's a 45 second flat at the top. So if it's windy or if you get a gust of wind here or there, it really makes a huge difference. Sometimes you'll see guys that are just way, way slower up there one day, then the next day they're fast again. That's a little bit frustrating, but it's just sort of what we've been dealing with this year and all the time really.