LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Bode Miller wants to continue racing next season at the age of 37, even if this campaign left him disappointed.

A third-place run in a World Cup super-G on Thursday typified Miller’s season: Fast and crowd-pleasing, but errors cost him victory.

“I’m frustrated and worn out right now but I think I have more to do in the sport,” Miller said. “I definitely am still competitive.

“If I can keep my body healthy then I think the plan is to race next year.”

Miller’s racing skills were clear when he became the oldest-ever Olympic Alpine medalist last month, taking bronze in super-G at Sochi.

On a steep and technically demanding slope Thursday, no one was faster than Miller’s speed check of 101.9 kph (63.3 mph).

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Still, he came down 0.57 seconds behind surprise winner Alexis Pinturault, with another Frenchman, Thomas Mermillod Blondin, edging Miller by one-hundredth of a second.

“I had probably two and half seconds, three seconds worth of mistakes in that run,” Miller insisted.

“That is the way my season has been. I have had to deal with that.”

Miller took full responsibility for his race, and a World Cup season that has brought him four podium finishes but no addition to his 33 career victories.

“It has been such a frustrating time of so many near-misses and so many really bad, stupid mistakes that I can’t blame anyone but myself for,” he said.

That list includes his top priority races: The classic World Cup downhill at Kitzbuehel, Austria, in January and the Olympic downhill last month.

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Miller finished third and eighth, respectively, when the best of his skiing was good enough to win, and his practice runs left some racers awe-struck.

On Wednesday, Miller’s final downhill performance this season followed the same pattern.

He led at the final time split – 0.30 faster than eventual winner Matthias Mayer of Austria, the Olympic champion – yet a mistake near the end took him wide into rough snow that slowed him.

“These errors aren’t little bobbles, they are like borderline catastrophic,” Miller explained. “(Wednesday) I just got so broken down about halfway down the course I didn’t even care anymore. I wanted to stop. I didn’t even really tuck through the finish line.”

Even standing up straight, he still finished eighth, just 0.62 back.

“I really wanted to change that today just because I think that’s not the way to race,” Miller acknowledged. “I just wanted to really stay focused to push every hundredth out of it that I could, even though I knew I was going to be out of the course a few times.”

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“I felt good about battling through it,” said the veteran racer, who has started a total of 32 World Cup and Olympics events this season after sitting out a year to recover from knee surgery.

One incentive for returning strong next season is to race at the world championships Feb. 2-15 in front of home fans at Vail-Beaver Creek, Colorado.

That’s for next season, after the current campaign closes with a giant slalom Saturday.

“Right now,” Miller said, “I feel like I don’t want to see ski boots for a little while.”


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