Steve Miller may already be in the Snohomish County Sports Hall of Fame, but he hasn’t slowed down one bit. And now, at long last, he can finally call himself an overall world champion.
The Everett High School graduate and longtime Lake Stevens resident bested the rest of the world when he claimed the Over 65 Men’s Overall championship at the 2022 IWWF World Over-35 Waterski Championships, held Sept. 12-18 on Baurech Lake in France.
“It’s a bit surreal,” the 66-year-old Miller said about finally winning a world championship.
“I was ranked No. 1, which is why worlds was extremely important,” Miller added. “It’s one thing to be ranked No. 1 in the world, it’s another to hold onto it actually get it when it’s at the World Championships. That was kind of icing on the cake in terms of going and defending my ranking.”
Miller’s list of accomplishments in the sport is long and illustrious. It includes many age-group national championships and world rankings, a 13-year undefeated streak and a gold medal from worlds for being a member of the U.S. squad that won the team championship in 2012. This is all despite spending his entire career as an amateur, often beating out former professionals. Miller’s accomplishments saw him inducted into the Snohomish County Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
But the one thing missing from his resume was an individual overall world title. He’d come close in the past, taking silver in Over 55 Men’s Overall in 2012 and bronze in 2014.
This was the first year Miller was eligible to compete in the Over 65 division — worlds take place every-other year — and he came in as the favorite in the competition, which incorporates three different disciplines: jump, slalom and tricks.
First up for Miller was the jump competition on Friday. Though each skier gets three attempts, Miller needed just one jump in both preliminaries and finals to finish first with a distance of 119 feet.
“With my bad knees, I was glad I could sit out the last two jumps in preliminaries,” Miller said. “And then I only had to take one jump in the finals, my knees were very pleased with that.”
Next up was slalom on Saturday. Miller was up against stiff competition as Jack Mills of the U.S. set a world record during preliminaries. But Miller and Mills finished tied during finals, and Miller prevailed in a tiebreaker.
“In the runoff (Mills) missed his gate, so all I needed to do is go through the gates and get around one ball,” Miller said. “But in hindsight it all worked out right because video showed that during finals he didn’t get around two balls, so there should never have been a runoff.”
Finally, it came down to tricks on Sunday. Though Miller had a commanding points lead, there was still an outside chance he could be passed.
“They weigh the trick points very high,” Miller explained. “So there was a slight chance that the person in second overall could overtake me if I had a very bad trick run. So I simplified my trick run to give me enough points where mentally I thought I’d have enough points to hold on and maintain first place.”
Miller finished third in tricks, but that was more than enough to claim first in the overall competition. Miller finished with 3,000.00 points to easily outdistance fellow American Dee Johnson, who was second with 2,556.64.
Miller also helped the U.S. claim the team championship. The team competition combines the results of the official team member in each of the 10 divisions (Over 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75 in both Men and Women). Miller contributed 2,801.37 points to the U.S cause, which was the second-most of any team member, and the U.S. totalled 14,285.52 to blow away the rest of the field, which was led by second-place Great Britain at 10,863.08.
By winning the overall competition at worlds Miller accomplished what he called the “trifecta,” as he also won overall in his division at the Western Regional Waterski Championship on July 21-24 in Rio Linda, California, and the Water Ski National Championships on Aug. 7-13 in Maize, Kansas.
One might think that finally reaching the pinnacle, given the amount of physical punishment Miller’s body has endured during his career — “I’ve always said I put a lot of doctors’ kids through college with the number of surgeries I’ve had,” Miller said — would prompt Miller to hang up his skis.
But Miller isn’t done yet. He’s determined to defend his ranking and title.
“It’s in my blood,” Miller said. “I just can’t see myself hanging it up. I might take a little different philosophy toward it, but it’s who I am. I don’t know. It’s the challenge. When someone beats you, you can shake their hand and say, ‘Congratulations.’ But right now I’m not just handing it over.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
