David Millar
David Millar is a Scottish road racing cyclist riding for Garmin-Sharp. He has won five stages of the Tour de France, two of the Vuelta a España and one Stage of the Giro d'Italia. He was the British national road champion and the national time trial champion, both in 2007. He is the only British rider to have worn all Tour de France jerseys and one of five to have worn the yellow jersey. He was also the first British rider ever to have worn the leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours. He was banned for two years in 2004 after admitting taking banned performance-enhancing drugs, but four years after his return he won the silver medal at the World Time Trial Championships. In June 2011 he published his autobiography titled Racing Through the Dark, which Richard Williams in The Guardian wrote was "one of the great first-person accounts of sporting experience".
“I might have changed, but that did not mean the sport had.”
“What an idiot I'd been. What a spoilt brat. What a bloody fool.”
“I'd just killed some of the best riders in the world - and I was clean. I'd taken nothing - no EPO, no cortisone, no testosterone, no painkillers, no caffeine. I had justified to myself that I was a great rider without drugs - yet perversely given myself the green light to dope again. I'd proved what I could do clean - how much more could I do if I was doped?”
“I was not a doper, I told myself - I just injected myself to recover and needed pills to sleep.”
“If you're not at the front, you're not in the race.”
“I was awarded 'Most Aggressive Rider of the Day', generally given to the most spectacular loser of the day.”
“The manner in which one loses the battle can sometimes outshine the victory.”
“The smallest issues can become the most important things in life and reality slips away.”
“The past is as important as the future, but we only live in the here and now.”
“I didn't want to take it. I knew it was a powerful drug, but I also knew it was a catabolic drug that consumed the body.”