Early years

Coached by Barry Prime, the Manly-born swimmer emerged onto the international scene as a 19-year-old at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Columbia, where he won the 100 m butterfly and the 4×100 m medley relay. In 1995, he became the World Short Course champion in the 200 m butterfly, and established himself as a contender for the 1996 Olympics. While competing at the Pan Pacific Championships in Atlanta that year, he was jailed for a night after intervening in a fight outside a nightclub. He was later cleared of wrongdoing.

1996 Olympics

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Miller was the fastest qualifier for the 100 m butterfly final, setting a new Olympic record of 52.89s in his heat, raising Australian hopes of a first gold at these Olympics. However, Denis Pankratov, representing Russia, who had reserved a rather controversial technique for the final, had other ideas. Pankratov employed the "submarine" technique of underwater swimming, which involved diving into the water and dolphin kicking^[1] underwater for as long as possible (as swimmers can swim underwater quicker than they can swim at the surface). At the time, it was illegal for breaststrokers and backstrokers to stay underwater for more than 25 m after the dive, but this did not apply to butterfly. Pankratov glided underwater for 35 m and surfaced well clear, reaching the 50 m mark with a lead of roughly 1 m. Despite Miller's determined run home, he touched in 52.53 s to claim the silver medal, 0.36 s behind Pankratov, who broke the nine-year-old world record in 52.27 s.

After the race, Australian head coach Don Talbot was full of praise for Miller's efforts - "I haven't seen a swimmer come back as hard as Miller did. I've got to hand it to him." Miller also claimed a second medal; he combined with Michael Klim, Steven Dewick and Phil Rogers to claim bronze in the 4×100 m medley relay.

Return to Australia

Miller had a difficult time upon his return to Australia. He was dismissed from the Australian Institute of Sport for repeatedly missing training sessions, and spent 1997 on the sidelines due to injury. Miller reappeared in the headlines in late 1997 when he tested positive to marijuana and was suspended by FINA for two months in 1998, despite his protestations.^[2] On his return from suspension, he had been surpassed by Klim and Geoff Huegill and was unable to gain selection for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He later made another comeback after the Sydney Olympics, but did not make any further impressions. In 2004, a horse named Krayzelburg which Miller part-owned with other swimming identities won the Sydney Entertainment Centre Trophy.^[3]