At 8.25pm on June 23rd 2004, David Millar was sitting in a restaurant near Biarritz in southwest France having dinner with Team GB coach David Brailsford, when he was approached by three suited men. They revealed themselves to be plain-clothes policemen working for the French drug squad, and escorted him to his flat. They searched it, found two used syringes, and then took Millar to prison where his shoelaces, keys, phone and watch were all taken from him, and he was thrown into a cell alone, the door clanging shut behind him. It was the lowest point of Millar’s career – one that had started so brilliantly just a few years before.
‘When I look back at the results I was getting early in my career, it was pretty bonkers,’ an older, wiser David Millar – now 39 – reveals. ‘Particularly in the first Tour. I was on the right trajectory but I just wasn’t patient enough. Expectations of me were high, which would have been a very hard thing to deal with in any era, but back then? Well, let’s just say it was a different time.’
It was a different time indeed. In the late 1990s when Millar turned pro, rider welfare consisted of little more than the odd vitamin injection and Millar found himself thrown in at the deep end. Aged just 20, he signed his first contract with French team Cofidis in 1997. Even in a period known for its hard living, the Cofidis team were notorious for their excesses, with some riders regularly bingeing on sleeping pills and amphetamines, and on one occasion stealing a team bus to visit a local brothel. Several of Cofidis’ talented yet troubled stars – such as Frank Vandenbroucke and Philippe Gaumont – went on to struggle with addiction before preventable and premature deaths.
It didn’t take long for Millar to become aware of the peloton’s dark secret – that doping was everywhere. But the idealistic, young rider was determined to ride clean, and initially he scored some major successes, including winning the Prologue stage of the Tour in 2000. However, as he rose through the ranks and became fêted as a future Tour winner, expectations began to weigh heavily. Struggling with a huge workload, and having to watch doped riders breezing past him, Millar finally relented to team requests that he ‘prepare properly’.
‘The pressure of expectation was one of the reasons I ended up getting into drugs,’ Miller reveals. ‘Because it was this era of mass doping and I wasn’t using drugs, I felt hindered. I didn’t believe it’d be possible for me to win because I saw that all the people who were winning the Tour were on drugs. You knew there was only one way you were ever going to fulfil those expectations.’
While Millar’s two years competing as a doped rider brought him success, including the individual time trial title at the UCI Road World Championships in 2003, keeping up the deceit started to take its toll on his emotional wellbeing. Unhappy and blighted by guilt, he became increasingly reliant on sleeping pills and alcohol. Disillusionment was setting in, too, until the possibility of a spot on the GB team based in Manchester seemed to offer him a potential escape route out of the continental scene, and a chance to quit doping. But it wasn’t to be, the French police were already on to him and their net was closing fast.
The fall and rise
Under questioning by the French police, Millar soon confessed to using the performance-enhancing drug EPO. This crime would see him fined and banned from professional riding for two years. He also received a lifetime ban from the British Olympic Association (BOA), and was stripped of his world title. The next two years also saw him lose his home as he tried to find solace at the bottom of a bottle. When his ban was finally lifted in 2006, however, Millar saw an opportunity for redemption.
‘I’d been given this second chance,’ he reveals, ‘and felt I had a debt to pay in honour of that. I wasn’t going to be able to hide from my past and knew that I was going to have to talk about it. I wanted to prevent some younger version of myself going through the same things. Then the [Spanish police’s anti-doping sting] Operación Puerto affair exploded and I became the go-to guy for all the journalists, because I was the only one prepared to talk about what was going on. I’d become this spokesman on doping.’
Millar became the highest-profile rider to admit to doping and talk candidly about the culture of drugs within the sport, although he refused to implicate any of his peers – a shrewd move that ensured he remained popular within the pro peloton. No longer regarded as a potential Tour winner, but riding clean and free of the burden of secrecy and guilt, he felt more at peace with himself.
‘I enjoyed the second part of my career a lot more than the first. Especially at Slipstream [the Garmin-sponsored team Millar joined in 2007, now operating as Cannondale Pro Cycling]. I loved that team,’ Millar admits. ‘We had such a clear mission statement with regards to rider welfare. We were ethical and had a fantastic bunch of guys. I found a real passion for cycling again, and I didn’t have these expectations to live up to. When I was there, all the mistakes I’d made helped me approach things with a little more wisdom. I was able to do what I wanted, rather than having to do what was expected. It was liberating.’
It was during this time that Millar became a vocal spokesperson for reform in pro cycling and wrote one of the great cycling biographies Racing Through The Dark (Orion, £9.98) – an unflinching account of his early career and doping. Meanwhile, in the saddle, he began grinding out clean victory after clean victory, gaining a formidable reputation as a breakaway specialist and a tireless worker. He also became known as one of the pro peloton’s most respected road captains – the rider whose job it is to marshal the team during the race. In 2011, as captain of Team GB, he helped to guide Mark Cavendish to glory at that year’s World Championships.
Nearing the end
The following year, at what was to be his penultimate Tour de France, Millar won his last ever stage in the race, which Bradley Wiggins famously went on to win. British cycling, under the guidance of David Brailsford – the man who’d been with Millar the night of his arrest – was heading towards the London Olympics in world-beating shape. As Britain’s most experienced rider, Millar should have been a shoo-in for the role of road captain on the five-man Olympic squad, but his past would come back to haunt him when the BOA insisted that his lifetime ban was just that – a lifetime ban. Salvation, however, was at hand. Just weeks before the Games began, the Court of Arbitration in Sport ruled that lifetime sanctions imposed by the BOA (the only Olympic association in the world to dole out such a draconian punishment) were unlawful. Millar’s ban was overturned.
‘It was the weekend of my mum’s 60th birthday,’ Millar recalls, ‘so the whole family were at my home in Girona. My sister came in and told me she’d just heard on the news that the BOA’s lifetime ban was going to be jettisoned. I lost it emotionally. I had to go upstairs and have a little cry because it was like, “What the fuck? This isn’t supposed to be happening.”
‘It was amazing then getting the selection,’ he grins. ‘We were on such a high with Bradley winning the Tour and between us having won seven stages. Mark [Cavendish] was reigning World Champ and it was the home Olympics. I only found out I’d be competing two weeks before, so perhaps I wasn’t really in the right mental place. I don’t think any of us were really rational. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been so publicly confident because it meant everyone raced against us, although that was going to happen anyway. Really we were fucked either way, everyone wanted to beat us rather than win the race. I’m still very proud of how we rode and it was an amazing thing to have been part of. It would have been extremely hard for me if I hadn’t been there.’
Despite not winning, Millar’s inclusion felt like something of a homecoming after years in the wilderness, especially given his long-standing friendship with Cavendish and his slightly less easy relationship with ex-team-mate Wiggins.
While the Olympics were an undoubted high-point, however, having spent 15 years on the road as a professional racer, the day when he’d cross his final finish line was fast approaching. ‘Racing always came easily because I’ve always just really loved it, says Millar. ‘That’s why I stuck at it so long. But then you have children and get older and lose that edge. I lost the chip on my shoulder and some of the need to prove myself, bash myself and suffer. I think that was the biggest thing, I stopped enjoying hurting myself! That’s when I knew it was time to think about how long I might continue racing for.’
An unexpected farewell
Preparation for a final Tour de France is at the heart of his second book, The Rider (Yellow Jersey, £9.28) but his time as a pro held one last twist. Slipstream – the team that he’d helped to build –failed to select him for the race. Discussing the way he was denied a final farewell lap, the hurt is still very much evident.
‘I’d always envisioned my final Tour de France with the team,’ Millar admits. ‘To not be included created this massive hole. It was devastating. It was sad and I still don’t really understand why they’d do that to me. It is what it is. I’m over it now, but I’m still pissed off with a few people. Cycling is really a rollercoaster. You go so deep physically, I think it affects your mind as well. There are no gifts. You’re only as good as your last race.’
I wasn’t always off the wall. I think the sport just fucked my mind
An outspoken introvert, even in retirement, Millar seems a little too thoughtful to be happy in the uncomplicated way that some athletes manage, and still carries some of the bruises accumulated over the years. Despite describing the world of cycling as ‘a cruel place’, leaving the sport that he’d served for almost two decades presented its own challenges.
‘No one’s prepared for the end and all riders struggle. When you stop, you suddenly don’t have the clear objectives you had previously, in my case for the past 18 years. Your life’s been dictated by the race calendar and suddenly that disappears and it’s got no ending. It takes a good few years to stabilise and realise it’s finished, and you’ve got to start all over again. There are still decades left and it’s not easy.’
Back in the fold
Since retiring, Millar’s found a role working with the Great Britain cycling team, mentoring young riders not only on the skills needed to perform at the highest level, but also on dealing with the potential temptation or pressure to dope.
‘British riders are very privileged. Once in the programme, they’re protected and given every opportunity to get the best out of themselves in a very ethical environment. It’s amazing now for neo-pros, they can have this junior Tour de France and not have this black cloud hanging over it, knowing that if they’re going to fulfil their potential, they’re going to have to dope. Instead, now you just work hard and see where your genetics take you, but that’s all it’s going to be. There’s no event-horizon of doping. They’re not going to see syringes or hear rumours about who’s on what, what doctors are doing whatever. It’s a healthy environment compared to what it used to be, thank god!’
Unsurprisingly, his appointment to Team GB cycling has proved controversial.
‘There are people who slag me off on Twitter, but few with the courage to say anything to my face. Oddly, it doesn’t bother me. They’ve not been able to handle what I’ve been through. They’re not the ones trying to rectify things and I’ve got no time for them.’
His claims to be untroubled by his detractors feels at odds with a personality that mixes equal parts self-belief and sensitivity. While Millar continues to divide opinion, there’s no denying that he’s served his time unflinchingly. During his career the sport has changed for the better, something that Millar can claim some credit for. Whatever your opinion of him it’s hard not to think that the era of watt counting, marginal gains and superteams has squeezed some of the colour from the sport. There certainly aren’t many riders as exciting to watch as he once was, or as eloquently outspoken as he continues to be.
‘There are a few wild characters left, but not many, in fact I’m struggling to think of any,’ he says. ‘Sport generally has changed, it’s all very professional now. Nineteen-year-old me would have fitted in so well with the modern sport. I wasn’t always off the wall. I think the sport just fucked my mind, and my whole generation really. I don’t think I was bonkers when I started, but over the years it’s twisted me slightly. Riders won’t go through that now. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. The sport will settle down, find its routine, then the eccentrics will find a way back in!’
David Millar runs a hand through the dark curls tumbling over his forehead and confesses with wry understatement that he has experienced ‘a very interesting life’. The enigmatic British rider retired last winter after 17 years as a professional cyclist during which his fortunes swung wildly from historic Tour de France success to a ban for drug use and a final public atonement. Through the many peaks and troughs of his professional life, the Scotsman always seemed different to his peers. Stylish, articulate and opinionated, Millar combined a bohemian spirit of nonconformity and rebellion with an aristocratic elegance on the bike – pedalling with a style and grace which French cyclists admiringly refer to as souplesse. Yet in races, he appeared to be fuelled by a ferocity and ambition that evoked the courage of the farm labourers and adventurers who raced so unflaggingly in the earliest editions of the Tour de France. Genteel yet gutsy, the dashing Scotsman was as hard to pin down as he was to race against.
Born in Malta to Scottish parents, Millar enjoyed an itinerant childhood in Scotland, England and Hong Kong, before forging a path into the world of professional cycling through the French amateur racing scene. Unlike modern riders, Millar succeeded in an era when cycling remained a niche sport in Britain and financial support and training help were almost nonexistent.
During his career, Millar won four individual stages of the Tour de France, five stages of the Vuelta a España and one stage of the Giro d’Italia. He became the only British rider to wear every coloured jersey at the Tour de France (yellow for the general classification, green for the points classification, polka-dot for the climbers, and white for the best young rider) and was the first British cyclist to pull on the leader’s jersey in all three Grand Tours.
However, as an impressionable and disillusioned young rider, Millar was sucked into the maelstrom of performance-enhancing drugs that pervaded cycling during his era, and he was banned from racing between 2004 and 2006. After a period of self-doubt and regret, he returned to professional cycling and went on to achieve yet more success as a clean rider, becoming a vocal anti-doping campaigner in the process.
Country life
The truth is that I got into cycling because I liked the fact it was a little bit mad
Today, Millar, 38, lives with his wife Nicole and sons Archibald and Harvey in a farmhouse close to the cycling mecca of Girona in Catalonia. It has been more than six months since his retirement. How does he reflect on his career? ‘You can’t change anything about the past. But, of course, I would be perfectly happy to start again today as a 19-year-old coming through the British Cycling system,’ he says. ‘It would have opened up so many more doors – with the [British Cycling] academy system and Team Sky and I would have enjoyed a very different life and missed out on the doping era. But at the same time, I’ve had a very interesting life and I am quite thankful of that. I think I’ve had more experiences than most people. The truth is that I got into cycling because I liked the fact it was a little bit mad – having to go off to France as a teenager and chase your dream – and because it’s such an interesting world to be in.’
Tall and lean at 6ft 4in, Millar admits he hasn’t been on his bike much since retiring but he has enjoyed a new sense of freedom and fun after years of strict training. He enjoyed taking part in the Maserati Tour de Yorkshire Ride sportive – for which he’s an ambassador – with his father Gordon in May. A week later he announced on Twitter that he had completed another sportive, enduring five punctures, but happily finishing the ride with a cold beer. Freed from the shackles of team sponsorship, he’s also enjoying the chance to sample new kit and is currently riding a sleek black Factor bike.
‘It’s nice to look forward to a ride and just enjoy cycling,’ he says. ‘Before now, it’s always been a part of my job. Now when I ride, it’s because I want to. I don’t have to worry about hitting numbers in training. I can have a chat and enjoy it. It’s the opposite of what I used to do. I’m a bit more “fair weather” now, too.’
City Racer
This renewed passion for the simple pleasures of cycling takes Millar back to his earliest childhood affection for the sport. He first raced BMX bikes and can remember riding a Raleigh Super Tuff Burner. At the age of 13, he moved to Hong Kong with his father – an airline pilot – after his parents separated, and soon discovered the joy of road cycling.
‘As a kid, I went through all the genres: BMX, mountain bikes, time trialling, road cycling… everything,’ he says. ‘The reason I got into road cycling was because I wanted to race. I had been watching the Tour de France and I fell in love with it.’
Millar would cycle at 6.30am before the roads of Hong Kong became choked with traffic. He also enjoyed exploring Hong Kong’s country parks. ‘It probably set me up nicely for riding in the peloton as the roads in Hong Kong are pretty hectic. I liked riding in the country parks in the early morning, but sometimes I would ride right into the heart of Mong Kok which is pretty wild. Hong Kong is hilly too, so it’s a great place to ride.’
Millar was a keen student of his sport. He says he ‘saturated himself’ with cycling books and magazines and spent many hours trying to ape the smooth pedalling style of Italy’s 1988 world road race champion Maurizio Fondriest and Spain’s five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain. From an early age, he showed an innate talent for time trialling – a skill which would drive his future success in mid-race breakaways and late attacks as well as time trials. He competed in 10-mile time trials in the UK whenever he returned during the school holidays. ‘I think physically and genetically I was quite good at that, but there is also the technical side and my positioning on the bike too,’ he explains. ‘I spent a lot of time working on that. I remember when I raced in the national championships as a junior I was the only guy there on a road bike with clip-on bars. All the others had all the best time trial kit. I think it’s a shame kids now use special time trial bikes as it means a lot of other kids can’t easily get into the sport if they want to.’
Tour de France
After completing his A-levels, Millar moved back to England to live with his mother, Avril, in Maidenhead. But he was determined to pursue a career in cycling and moved to France to race for the St-Quentin amateur team. Today, young British cyclists are able to learn their trade with the British Cycling academy, typically honing their talents on the track before joining professional road teams like Team Sky. But in Millar’s era, riders took the old-school route to the top, racing in amateur ranks in Europe, hoping a pro team would eventually offer them a contract.
‘St-Quentin was good for me because that kind of immersion meant I had to learn French and train and race hard,’ he recalls. ‘I had to be at my best, so I was deeply focused and driven about what I wanted to do. I could have no excuses over there.’ It was a courageous move for a young teenager, but Millar says his passion for cycling and cosmopolitan childhood made the move simpler. ‘I was an expat, so moving abroad was fine. When I was in France, cycling was my whole life. It was me against the world.’
After winning eight races with St-Quentin, Millar was offered a professional contract by five different teams in 1997. He signed with French squad Cofidis under team boss Cyrille Guimard, a former pro who had won seven stages of the Tour de France. Millar competed in the Tour de France for the first time in 2000 and won the first stage – a 16.5km time trial at Futuroscope (a theme park in Poitiers) to claim the yellow jersey, which he had first seen on television back in Hong Kong.
‘It felt pretty amazing, but it is so hard to describe,’ says Millar. ‘The yellow jersey of the Tour de France is the reason I got into cycling – so to wear it was surreal. But I never expected to win it on the first day of my first Tour de France. It’s an iconic jersey, so you get natural respect from the bunch and you see people pointing at you at the side of the road.’
More success followed over the next three years as Millar won additional stages of the Tour in 2002 and 2003, stages of the Vuelta in 2001 and 2003, and the individual time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Canada in 2003. At times hedonistic and rebellious, Millar enjoyed the trappings of his success, partying in VIP clubs near his home in Biarritz and buying a grand house with a cinema room and wine cellar. He celebrated his World Championships win by flying to the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
The fall and rise
However, Millar had been hiding a dark secret. Competing in an era in which drug abuse was rife, he had descended into the murky world of doping, a traumatic and dangerous experience which he described in detail in his 2011 autobiography Racing Through The Dark. Having originally decided that he would race clean, Millar was disillusioned by the sight of doped-up rivals winning races. Over time, he convinced himself of the need to take testosterone, cortisone and erythropoietin (EPO).
On 21 June 2004, Millar was dining in a restaurant in Biarritz when he was approached by three policemen who had been monitoring him. After searching his apartment, they found empty phials of Eprex – a brand of EPO – and two used syringes. Millar spent the night in a cell and after 47 hours in custody, he finally confessed. Millar was fired by Cofidis and suspended for two years by British Cycling. He lost his home and spent months in an alcohol-soaked gloom. ‘It was the same shit every day – I got drunk a lot,’ he says. ‘But I was helped by my family and friends, by Dave Brailsford [then head of British Cycling] and by the British Cycling team who were up in Manchester.’
Devastated and repentant, Millar moved to Hayfield in the Peak District to be close to the Manchester velodrome and the headquarters of British Cycling. He began training and rediscovering his fitness. In 2006, at the end of his suspension, he returned to the Tour de France with the Spanish team Saunier Duval-Prodir. The following year he moved to the Garmin-Slipstream team (now Cannondale-Garmin), whose boss Jonathan Vaughters advocated a staunch anti-doping ethos. Millar became a passionate anti-doping campaigner and an athlete committee member for the World Anti-Doping Agency. ‘No rider gets into cycling to take drugs,’ he says. ‘Today, nobody will have to go through what I did, which is great. Cycling has had a pretty brutal past with drugs, but it’s not like that now.’
In the second half of his career, Millar achieved more success on the road, proving to himself that he could reach the top as a clean rider. In 2006, he won a stage of the Vuelta and the British individual pursuit title on the track. In 2007, he was victorious at the British national championships in both the road race and time trial. In 2009, he won another stage of the Vuelta and in 2011, a stage of the Giro. His most memorable moment was his victory on stage 12 of the 2012 Tour when he won a cat-and-mouse sprint after a breakaway with three other riders. ‘Winning the stage in 2012 meant that my career either side of my doping ban was almost identical,’ he says. ‘I’m proud to have come back and replicated most of what I had achieved before the ban, but doing so clean. It felt good. It felt like closure.’
Since retiring last winter, Millar has been busy. He’s writing a second book, due in October. Then there’s his clothing range with Castelli. ‘It’s strange doing all the conference calls and working on the production, but I’ve always been creative, so it’s been brilliant fun.’
He’s also done a spot of punditry, appearing alongside Chris Boardman and Gary Imlach on ITV4’s Tour de France highlights show. ‘To the recently retired like Jensie [Voigt] and me, now paid to view from the outside, we suddenly realise why the public view Tour de France riders as superheroes,’ he says. Millar has also been coaching his former team-mate and friend Ryder Hesjedal. The Canadian cyclist won the Giro d’Italia in 2012. ‘He’s an experienced rider, but sometimes you just need a sounding board,’ he explains.
After 17 years of glory, shame, excitement, despair, hope and redemption, Millar’s philosophy for the future mirrors his blueprint for battling through a long, hot mountainous day in the Pyrenees. ‘There are moments when you think it’s all over and you feel like giving up but as you get older, you realise you can make it through,’ he says. ‘That ability to not throw in the towel comes when you’ve been in those tough situations before and have got through them. You realise you can survive anything.’
David Millar is an ambassador for Maserati GB
Words by Marc Bailey.