Sochi's Olympic ski venue is "world class" and as good a competition destination as any on the World Cup tour, Vancouver gold medalist Bode Miller said Thursday.
The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup rolls into Rosa Khutor this weekend to give the slopes for the 2014 Winter Games their first serious test in worldwide competition.
"The venue, the mountain, is world class. It's as nice as any of the places we ever go," Miller said after downhill practice runs Thursday.
"I think it's going to be amazing to host the Olympics here. I hope that they really do as good a job as they can because the Olympics is the perfect opportunity to showcase a venue, an area, a culture and country, and I think Russia right now is very due for that."
The World Cup stages will include downhill and super combined events this weekend.
Miller was quoted as saying on Wednesday that he considered the upper parts of the downhill course itself to contain too many turns, more akin to a Super-G.
But he said the quality of the resort will go a long way to changing foreign impressions about the country as a winter sports destination.
"A lot of people still have a lot of misconceptions about the area, and they don't think of ski areas when they think of Russia. So this will be a really amazing chance to show the world what your country is."
The women's World Cup stage arrives in Sochi the following weekend of February 17-18.
