Olympians Join Tammy Duckworth at VA Winter Sports Clinic

On Wednesday, March 31, Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion Alpine skier Bode Miller and Olympian Casey Puckett will join Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs L. Tammy Duckworth at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village, Colo. The Clinic, in its 24th year, teaches adaptive Alpine and Nordic skiing to more than 400 disabled Veterans annually.

The Clinic is a life-changing event that promotes rehabilitation to disabled Veterans from across the country.  It offers a unique media opportunity to tell the heroic stories of courage and determination, as told first-hand by disabled Veterans from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Veterans with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, amputations, visual impairments and neurological challenges will take to the slopes using the latest adaptive ski equipment.

More details on the Clinic are available at www.wintersportsclinic.va.gov.

Bode Miller Biography:

Bode Miller is regarded as one of the best ski racers of all time.  Bode recently won a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Combined with his two Silver Medals in the 2002 Winter Olympics, Bode is the most decorated U.S. Olympic skier in history, and his five medals are across four different alpine skiing events.  Bode has won two overall World Cup titles (2005 and 2008) along with four World Cup discipline titles (Giant Slalom, Combined, and SuperG x 2).  He has also won four World Championship Gold medals along with a Silver.  Bode’s 32 World Cup wins are the most by any American skier.  Bode is one of only two men to win a World Cup race in the four primary disciplines in a single season and is one of only five men to win a race in all five alpine skiing disciplines in a career.  Bode has his own foundation which benefits youth sports and environmental causes http://www.turtleridgefoundation.org

Casey Puckett Biography:

A five-time Olympic Alpine skier whose career highlight was a seventh-place finish in slalom at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, Puckett went into retirement following the 2002 Salt Lake Games and began coaching a local ski club in Aspen, Colo. Though he was happy with his new occupation, Puckett admits that “I hadn’t really gotten my competitive bug out yet,” and after trying out ski cross in 2003, he says “I fell in love with it.” Puckett recorded his first top-three World Cup ski cross finish with a second-place result in Les Contamines, France, in January 2008 and during the 2008-09 season, the veteran was the top American in the World Cup ski cross standings.