David Millar

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David Millar examining his time trial bicycle.

David Millar (born January 4, 1977 in Malta) is a Scottish road racing cyclist. He has won three Tour de France stages, two Vuelta a España stages, and other accolades. He is not related to fellow Scot and cycling namesake Robert Millar.

Millar was convicted of doping offenses a few months before the start of the 2004 Tour de France and served a two-year ban. Upon finishing his sentence shortly before the 2006 Tour de France, he committed to racing the Tour with his new team Saunier Duval-Prodir.

[edit] Early career

David Millar burst into the cycling scene as the young leader of the French team Cofidis by winning the prologue of the 2000 Tour de France, and held the yellow jersey for a few days. He failed to repeat his feat in 2001 due to a crash, and finished fifth in the prologue in 2002. During his attempt to again win the prologue in 2003, his chain dropped a short distance from the finish due to the absence of a front derailleur, a decision which he blamed on directeur sportif Alain Bondue. He claimed that he lost the prologue because Bondue was trying to save a few grams by removing the front derailleur from his time-trial bike. Bondue countered by saying that Millar himself had made his own choice of equipment for the prologue and ignored advice from others to keep to traditional chain rings. [1]

Hopes of him someday winning the Tour de France were fueled by his stage win in the 2001 Vuelta a España, which saw him in a 2-man breakaway with Santiago Botero, on a difficult mountain stage of the Vuelta. However, Millar himself has been quoted as saying that if he were to challenge the general classification of the Tour de France, it would be only if he were certain of winning, not simply to get a top finish. He is known for his straightforward comments, and he quit the Vuelta in 2002 to protest the poor route selection and dangerous parcours. He had crashed multiple times and upon approaching the finish of the stage, Millar ripped off his race number and quit only meters from the finish line.

[edit] Doping offense

A good friend of Lance Armstrong, he too had specialised in the individual time trial, and was preparing for competition in the track events at the 2004 Olympics when police searched his house in June 2004, finding used Epogen syringes. Millar confessed to the use of EPO in 2001 and 2003. He blamed his use of EPO to his high level of stress, in particular having failed to win the prologue in the 2003 Tour de France and having been defeated by Jan Ullrich in the 2001 World Time Trial Championship, despite having raised his arms in the finale in confidence of winning. Jan Ullrich had increased his tempo to make up his time deficit and beat Millar in the final section of the course.

In August 2004 Millar was suspended for two years by British Cycling, stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship rainbow jersey, and given a $1,600 fine. He was also fired by the Cofidis team, which imposed a self-ban from competition in order to find team members who were involved in the scandal. In the end several riders and assistants were fired from the team for association with Millar's doping case. French rider Cédric Vasseur was also made a suspect in the case, and was forbidden from starting in the 2004 Tour de France, but later cleared from suspicion.

[edit] Post-suspension

Although Millar's two-year suspension ended barely a week before the start of the 2006 Tour de France, he participated in the race after signing with the Spanish squad Saunier Duval. Millar finished 17th on the opening prologue time-trial at the 2006 Tour de France with a time of 8.31, and 11th on the penultimate, time-trial stage. He finished 59th overall (out of 139 riders who completed the Tour), +2 hrs 04:10 behind the yellow jersey winner Floyd Landis.

In the 2006 Vuelta a España, Millar completed his comeback to top-level cycling with a win in Stage 14, a time trial around the city of Cuenca.

Riders on Saunier Duval-Prodir