Pools, parties, prostitution, prison: The Scott Miller story

Scott Miller's three-decade fall from the Olympic dais ended in prison. It saved his lifeBy Paul Johnson for Deep End: The Scott Miller StoryTopic:Swimming It is one of the world's heaviest metals. And for 25 years it weighed Australian Olympian Scott Miller down. Drugs and bad decisions destroyed his life until a dramatic arrest and incarceration saved it. When Miller went to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 as a 21-year-old, the weight of a nation was on his ample shoulders. He would win silver, beaten for gold in controversial circumstances by Russian Denis Pankratov, who swam more than a third of the race underwater, to break the only individual men's world record in a final at the meet. Shattered, Miller threw the silver medal in the bin, only to have it retrieved by his mother, Jenny. The Australian saw the silver as "failure" and it triggered a spiral that would last decades, culminating in what is one of the biggest falls from grace in Australian sporting history. Miller went from Olympian and 90s heart-throb as Cleo magazine's Bachelor of the Year to convicted drug supplier. Miller himself acknowledges the monumental level of his dive from the dais. "It's up there," Miller told the ABC News Documentary Deep End. It was after Atlanta that he first began to use drugs. "It gave a taste of that sort of lifestyle. "I don't know what the straw that broke me was but there was a lot of shit going on there. "[It was] one thing after the other after 96." Scott Miller screams after finishing second in the men's 100m butterfly final at the Atlanta Olympics to Russian Denis Pankratov. (Allsport: Al Bello via Getty Images) It included parties, an ill-conceived marriage, injury, addiction, pimping, bankruptcy, drug dealing and finally more than three years in maximum security prison. But it was prison that saved him. After the '96 Games Miller was wildly popular. Handsome and armed with a cheeky grin he was considered the pin-up boy of the pool. Scott Miller in 1994 just before he would truly grab the nation's attention. (Supplied) Fame was thrust upon him and so were the pitfalls that came with it. Miller was trying to live two lives. That of the party boy and the swimmer — it would lead to a positive test for marijuana and a short ban. "1997-98 I was trying to do both," Miller said. "Money gets thrown at you and things change quickly. "You go to things and you don't know why you're going to them … you're doing it for someone else." It was a time his best friend, Olympic gold medallist Chris Fydler remembers well. Chris Fydler (centre) celebrates gold with Ashley Callus (left) and Michael Klim (right) in the famous "smash 'em like guitars" race at the Sydney 2000 Games. (Darren England/ALLSPORT) "Following the 96 Olympics [Miller] was a superstar in Australia and not just in the sporting world," Fydler said. "He was on every talk show. He was wearing silk shirts, he was partying with models, he was ambassador for various brands and having a general kind of good time. "You couldn't walk down the street without someone recognising him. "If you went to a nightclub, he wouldn't be waiting in queues." Training had also no longer become the primary objective. He was named Cleo Bachelor of the Year in 1997 and had met his soon to be wife, fashion editor Charlotte Dawson, the future host of Australia's Next Top Model. Charlotte Dawson was synonymous with fashion in Australia. (Don Arnold: Getty Images) The relationship thrust him further into the spotlight and something that was very 1990s … glossy magazines. New Idea, Women's Day, Cleo … Miller and Dawson were everywhere. It was a whirlwind romance and Dawson — someone Miller saw as a "strong woman" — proposed to him. Miller though said he wasn't in it for all the right reasons. Broadcaster Alan Jones had become somewhat of a mentor and Miller and Fydler were living in a Newtown warehouse Jones owned so they could be near to their training base at Sydney University. Miller says Jones had become somewhat controlling and even pushed for a change of manager to Harry M Miller, something Scott says cost him money. "Charlotte didn't take any shit from him," Miller said. "She really would put a foot down and he didn't like it. And I liked the fact that he didn't like it. Miller liked it when Charlotte Dawson stood up to Alan Jones. (AAP: Mick Tsikas) "She wouldn't let him control me, whereas [prior] I felt he had this control over me somehow. "For whatever reason, I just saw it as a way to fix the situation that was becoming uncomfortable." The pair would get married in 1999, but things quickly deteriorated. Dawson had met a party boy who swam a bit, but with Sydney 2000 closing in Miller switched back to full-time athlete mode, determined to right the wrong of Atlanta. "When the focus shifted and I wasn't the handbag. When I wasn't keen to go to the opening of an envelope … she didn't know how to handle it," Miller said. "I was trai

Pools, parties, prostitution, prison: The Scott Miller story

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