Tuesday 27th July : The Guardian Newspaper
Millar's tale of woe is made all the sadder by his natural talent
The Scot is not the first Briton to let drugs ruin his career
William Fotheringham
Tuesday July 27, 2004
The Guardian
For all the shock and harsh words that have accompanied David Millar's fall from grace, perhaps one bitter fact should be accepted now. British Tour de France cyclists do not have a happy record when it comes to the use of banned drugs. Robert Millar, Malcolm Elliott and the less well-known Derek Harrison all tested positive at various times.
The best of them all, Tom Simpson, died of using amphetamines on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. The case still makes waves among the head in the sand brigade, as I found when my biography of him, 'Put me back on my bike', drew bitter criticism from Simpson's family.
The latest of Major Tom's heirs apparent, David Millar, has just ruined his cycling career and thrown his young life upside down because of drugs.
Millar was threatened by the judge leading the investigation into his Cofidis team, with five separate drug charges. As it is, he may well not eventually go to court, as the charge of possession of 'venomous substances' hardly holds good when the syringes of 'venom' are empty.
He may be found to have committed no crime, but there were victims. Millar won most of his 24 professional victories without using drugs, but he took a world title last October having "prepared" with erythropoietin. The Australian Michael Rogers will eventually be awarded the rainbow jersey, but it will have little savour for him.
What is most bitter about the Millar saga is how unnecessary it all was. The Scot had sufficient talent at the age of 23 to beat Lance Armstrong - yes, the six times Tour winner, no less - to win the prologue time-trial of the 2000 Tour. He rose to 16th in the world in 2001 and took most of his wins "clean". He won a stage of the 2002 race on "water".
Why, then, did he need to dope? He decided to do so, as he now admits, off his own bat. He was offered the drug, and took it against his better instincts. He doped, in essence, because no one gave him any reason not to do so. The reasons against should have been clear. As I said to him, since the Festina scandal in 1998, professional cycling's credibility has been on a knife edge. Clearly, they were not put to him.
Quite where this leaves British cycling is open to question. How will the decision-makers in London view this as they push for a Tour de France start in 2007? How will British cycling fans see the European big names when they return to this country to ride the Tour of Britain? The Lottery-funded World Class Performance Plan is on the defensive, although they did not know Milllar was using drugs when he won it a world title and it is completely up front in its opposition to drugs.
Millar said yesterday that he had only realised what proper coaching was when he began working with the World Class Performance Plan this year, because the moral support it provided made him determined to perform without using drugs.
"The only reason I went 'clean' was because I found Dave Brailsford [the WCPP director] and Peter Keen [his coach]. They have a decent support system, a proper team. They are 10 times more professional than Cofidis will ever be. The ratio of support staff to riders is far higher, they all know their jobs, there is a proper hierarchy."
I believed Millar when he said he had no reason to use drugs, but when he became more practised at what he now terms "ambiguous" answers similar to those trotted out by known former drug users, my instincts told me he had crossed the line.
He told me yesterday that he knew how most journalists who have followed cycling's drug scandals would ***** up their ears, but it did not stop him.
He was right, but intuition did not prevent me wanting to believe. As a result, his confession when it was dragged out of him was not a bolt from the blue but a painful reminder of how sports fans - and sports journalists should be among their number - can fly in the face of reality and imbue our heroes with the qualities we want them to have.
Millar's tale of woe is made all the sadder by his natural talent
The Scot is not the first Briton to let drugs ruin his career
William Fotheringham
Tuesday July 27, 2004
The Guardian
For all the shock and harsh words that have accompanied David Millar's fall from grace, perhaps one bitter fact should be accepted now. British Tour de France cyclists do not have a happy record when it comes to the use of banned drugs. Robert Millar, Malcolm Elliott and the less well-known Derek Harrison all tested positive at various times.
The best of them all, Tom Simpson, died of using amphetamines on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. The case still makes waves among the head in the sand brigade, as I found when my biography of him, 'Put me back on my bike', drew bitter criticism from Simpson's family.
The latest of Major Tom's heirs apparent, David Millar, has just ruined his cycling career and thrown his young life upside down because of drugs.
Millar was threatened by the judge leading the investigation into his Cofidis team, with five separate drug charges. As it is, he may well not eventually go to court, as the charge of possession of 'venomous substances' hardly holds good when the syringes of 'venom' are empty.
He may be found to have committed no crime, but there were victims. Millar won most of his 24 professional victories without using drugs, but he took a world title last October having "prepared" with erythropoietin. The Australian Michael Rogers will eventually be awarded the rainbow jersey, but it will have little savour for him.
What is most bitter about the Millar saga is how unnecessary it all was. The Scot had sufficient talent at the age of 23 to beat Lance Armstrong - yes, the six times Tour winner, no less - to win the prologue time-trial of the 2000 Tour. He rose to 16th in the world in 2001 and took most of his wins "clean". He won a stage of the 2002 race on "water".
Why, then, did he need to dope? He decided to do so, as he now admits, off his own bat. He was offered the drug, and took it against his better instincts. He doped, in essence, because no one gave him any reason not to do so. The reasons against should have been clear. As I said to him, since the Festina scandal in 1998, professional cycling's credibility has been on a knife edge. Clearly, they were not put to him.
Quite where this leaves British cycling is open to question. How will the decision-makers in London view this as they push for a Tour de France start in 2007? How will British cycling fans see the European big names when they return to this country to ride the Tour of Britain? The Lottery-funded World Class Performance Plan is on the defensive, although they did not know Milllar was using drugs when he won it a world title and it is completely up front in its opposition to drugs.
Millar said yesterday that he had only realised what proper coaching was when he began working with the World Class Performance Plan this year, because the moral support it provided made him determined to perform without using drugs.
"The only reason I went 'clean' was because I found Dave Brailsford [the WCPP director] and Peter Keen [his coach]. They have a decent support system, a proper team. They are 10 times more professional than Cofidis will ever be. The ratio of support staff to riders is far higher, they all know their jobs, there is a proper hierarchy."
I believed Millar when he said he had no reason to use drugs, but when he became more practised at what he now terms "ambiguous" answers similar to those trotted out by known former drug users, my instincts told me he had crossed the line.
He told me yesterday that he knew how most journalists who have followed cycling's drug scandals would ***** up their ears, but it did not stop him.
He was right, but intuition did not prevent me wanting to believe. As a result, his confession when it was dragged out of him was not a bolt from the blue but a painful reminder of how sports fans - and sports journalists should be among their number - can fly in the face of reality and imbue our heroes with the qualities we want them to have.
