Olympic medalist Cody Miller looks to cash in at hometown Enhanced Games

Las Vegas native and Palo Verde High School graduate Cody Miller returns to Southern Nevada to compete on Sunday in the controversial Enhanced Games.

Miller, who won a gold and a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, is looking to cash in at the Enhanced Games. The event allows athletes to use performance-enhancing substances banned by other major competitions, offering $25 million in prizes, including first place prizes of $250,000 and a $1 million bonus to anyone who breaks a world record.

The former Olympian said it was a dream come true to be back in his hometown and be swimming on the Strip at a competition complex built at Resorts World.

“I love it. I was swimming in the pool today and felt like I was born to be in that pool,” Miller said Friday. “I dreamed about having an awesome meet like this on the Las Vegas Strip as a kid, so pretty exciting, man.”

After avoiding banned substances during his swimming career, Miller joined the Enhanced Games event if some of his peers in the sport were critical of the games.

Miller said the substances that he has taken include testosterone, human growth hormone and oxandrolone, which is an anabolic steroid.

“As far as the performance-enhancing thing, I know a lot of people that are already ‘enhanced’ that are on a lot of the substances that were made public a few days ago to you (media), things like testosterone or hormone replacement stuff,” Miller said. “So that’s not anything that was foreign to me, although I’ve obviously never done any things before. So I get that that’s just like where the world is going from a longevity standpoint. A lot of it’s just a lot of crossover.

“So the idea of marketing a lot of these things off of the world’s elite healthy humans makes sense to me, opposed to what you see when you turn on the TV and you watch someone break a world record, win a gold medal, and then they cut to an ad for Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. That always rubbed me the wrong way. But you know, we’re here to swim fast, make money, and do something cool. It’s kind of why I’m here.”

Miller’s medal-winning Olympic games occurred 10 years ago, and although those games are often viewed as the pinnacle of sport, for Miller the Enhanced Games are right up there with that.

“The biggest thing for me is like now I have two kids, they’re 4 and 5 and so having my kids be able to be here and watch me compete, come out of retirement for this, like they’re old enough to kind of make memories and hopefully remember this,” Miller said. “That’s the thing I’m most excited about.”

Enhanced Games swimming coach Brett Hawke said Miller achieving a world record might be tough, but he has seen great things from the former Olympian in the water in the lead up to the games.

“Adam Peaty’s got the world record; I don’t know if anyone’s touching that just yet, but Cody is swimming fantastic,” Hawke said. “He’s been looking great on the watch. Put in some really good work over in Abu Dhabi (for Enhanced Games training). I didn’t get to see the last part of his preparation, but I’ve seen him the last few days and he looks in peak form for sure.”

Miller, 34, who attended Palo Verde between 2006 and 2010, broke multiple national records as a member of the Sandpipers of Nevada Swim Club. He landed a spot on the U.S. national junior team in 2009 after success in national and international swimming events.

Miller attended Indiana University thereafter, where he also swam competitively and earned a degree in business management.

After his two-medal performance in the 2016 Summer Olympics, Miller received a key to the Strip from Clark County, and it was proclaimed Cody Miller Day in Southern Nevada. He still has the memento but admitted it doesn’t get you special treatment in the city.

“It’s in my office at home,” Miller said. “You know how many people are like, ‘Does that get you into this and that?’ I’m like, not really. It doesn’t really do much, it’s more like ceremonial, but it is cool.”

After spending a lot of his time as a youth swimming at the Desert Breeze Aquatic Facility in the southwest valley, it’s surreal to be back competing again all these years later.

“I was the first person to swim in Desert Breeze, like the first person to dive in the water in like, what year did that open, 2001 maybe,” Miller said. “I think I was like 9 years old. I’ve swam in every pool in the city and being back here, having my camp here and having me here, I feel like it’s very full circle moment for me and a lot of people that I grew up with, which has been one of the best aspects of this whole journey that we’re on.”