Witty, and possibly accurate. David Millar was one such ledge. Three years ago, after the Scot’s confession that he had used EPO, it seemed like a ‘rock bottom’ moment, but there have been so many others since – so many false bottoms, closely followed by a further descent into ever murkier depths – that Millar, we now recognise, was but a ledge in fairly shallow waters.

In fact, seen in the context of sophisticated multinational doping rings, dodgy doctors and bags of cryptically labelled blood, Millar’s reputation has been all but transformed. He is now perceived by many as one of the good guys – or one of the not-so-bad guys, anyway.

It was Millar himself who saw the irony, at last year’s world championships, not long after his doping ban had expired, in journalists approaching him for an “honest” perspective on the sport’s drugs travails. They trusted him and believed he would speak the truth. Ironic, eh?Also ironic is the memory of the assertion of the former Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc, in June 2004, that Millar – following his doping confession – would not be welcome at the Tour. The Scot and his ilk would, said Leblanc, “poison” the great race.

Instead, he can now be seen as a trailblazer and a trendsetter – someone who can be held up as a positive example. Again, context is everything: Millar’s honesty – admittedly after he had been taken in for questioning by the French police – was without precedent in a sport that has been in a collective state of denial for decades. Yet his willingness to accept full responsibility for his “mistakes” seems to have inspired others.

Erik Zabel, the four-time points winner in the Tour de France, and Bjarne Riis, the overall winner in 1996, are among several high profile riders to have confessed this year to drug use in the past. Zabel is still an active rider, whose Milram team is, for the moment, supporting him; and Riis, the currently ostracised team director of the CSC team, may yet be accepted back into the fold – facing up to the truth being the first step towards rehabilitation, and all that.

For Millar, the penance for past mistakes is that he has become the peloton’s unofficial spokesman on doping issues. He accepts that role – not happily, not grudgingly, but simply because he doesn’t see that he has a choice. These days, when cyclists refuse to discuss doping they leave themselves open to accusations that they are hiding something.

Indeed, such is Millar’s new status as Mr Anti-Doping that this week he found himself at the centre of a minor stushie. Until Thursday evening he had still to sign the Union Cycliste Internationale’s (UCI) radical new anti-doping charter – and the absence of his signature was being noted and remarked upon. Never mind that only around 165 of the 800 registered professionals had got round to signing it by then – the fact that Millar hadn’t was interpreted as some kind of sign.

“I’ve signed it, I signed it last night,” said a weary sounding Millar early on Friday morning, speaking from his home in Girona, near Barcelona. As the subject of doping was raised he stifled a yawn, though this was down to tiredness, he explained. “I’ve not been sleeping well,” he said, and the croakiness of his voice supported that. His form, he added, is “average”.

“ I’m not firing on all cylinders. It’s all gone to f***ing shit since I was sent to [the Tour of] Romandie [in early May], which threw a complete spanner in the works.”
With the London Grand Départ of Tour de France less than a week away Millar is, understandably, more preoccupied by his form – or lack of it – than with the latest doping stories. But he struggles manfully on, and there is no shortage of dispatches to discuss, from the bizarre – the reports last week that the UCI are monitoring a group known as the “men in black,”who train in secret locations and try to go incognito by dressing in un-branded clothing – to the disturbing, such as the week’s other revelation, that the first four finishers in the recent Giro d’Italia are being investigated for having “abnormally low” hormone levels. One of these riders is Millar’s Saunier Duval team-mate Gilberto Simoni.

So first off, Millar would like to blow this one out the water. “That’s such f***ing shite. These guys are being investigated because their hormone levels were low. If they were doping it’d be high!” He laughs at the apparent logic, then becomes irritated again. “These are guys who raced naturally at the Giro, but you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If your testosterone levels are low it means you’re f***ed! What do they expect after three weeks of a grand tour?

“It’s unbelievably irresponsible and uneducated of CONI [the Italian Olympic Committee, who are investigating the samples of the riders in question],” continues Millar, now sounding fully awake. “It shows that the people working there actually have no idea.

“And it undermines everything. But we’re supposed to respect this organisation [CONI] who are reading these results, and critiquing them, and soiling people’s names when they are completely natural.”

The new UCI charter also raises Millar’s ire. Which might surprise people, given that he has pledged to be a wholehearted supporter of the governing body’s anti-doping efforts. He has worked closely with the UCI before and into his comeback – even volunteering regular blood samples to the world governing body’s head doctor – and appeared at a UK Sport conference in London in March to offer an insight into doping to British governing bodies.

But the charter, he argues, is ill conceived. It is not – nor can it be – a panacea. Instead he considers it a gesture, albeit an elaborate and ambitious one. Beneath some general statements acknowledging that the “climate of suspicion [is] undermining the credibility of my sport and eroding the trust of the public, authorities, organisers and my colleagues”, the full text of the charter – headlined ‘Riders’ Commitment to a New Cycling’ – reads as follows:

“I do solemnly declare, to my team, my colleagues, the UCI, the cycling movement and the public that I am not involved in the [Operacion] Puerto [blood doping] affair nor in any other doping case and that I will not commit any infringement to the UCI anti-doping rules. As proof of my commitment, I accept, if it should happen that I violate the rules and am granted a standard sanction of a two-year suspension or more, in the Puerto affair or in any other anti-doping proceedings, to pay the UCI, in addition to the standard sanctions, an amount equal to my annual salary for 2007 as a contribution to the fight against doping.

“At the same time, I declare to the Spanish Law, that my DNA is at its disposal, so that it can be compared with the blood samples seized in the Puerto affair. I appeal to the Spanish Law to organise this test as soon as possible or allow the UCI to organise it. Finally, I accept the UCI’s wish to make my statement public.”
By the end of the week the list of riders to have signed the charter – published on the UCI website – was lengthy. But there were still some notable names missing, as well as entire teams – among them the Kazakh-backed squad of pre-Tour favourites Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden, the Belgian Quickstep team, CSC of Denmark, Lampre of Italy. Other favourites, such as Spain’s Alejandro Valverde, had also still to sign, and there was vocal opposition to the charter, particularly in Spain and Italy, and from the Dutch Rabobank team, whose riders released a statement complaining that the charter showed a “lack of respect for the rights of the individual cyclist”.

Millar’s view on the charter appears to be more sceptical than hostile. “The bottom line is we have to sign it [no rider will be permitted to start the Tour de France if they haven’t signed], but to me that’s one of the reasons it seems a bit odd. We’re all under duress to do it, and we haven’t got time to get counsel regarding some things in it, but if you take a step back, and look at it in the real world, it’s a complete fallacy.

“It’s another thing they’re doing to help the fight against doping, and maybe it’ll scare some guys, but the bottom line is that the guys who cheat now don’t care, do they? You’re already risking everything if you dope, so what do you care? As if they’re going to be able to get a year’s salary off you anyway. I wouldn’t say it’s lip service, it’s just an extreme measure, but a short term one. It’s a big gesture before the Tour, but that’s all it is.” It is a change in culture, rather than a gesture, that is needed. Millar knows this more than anyone; he says he is optimistic but not so naïve as to expect an incident-free build-up to the Tour’s London start, after last year’s Grand Départ in Strasbourg was completely overshadowed by revelations from Operacion Puerto, and the last-minute expulsion of pre-race favourites Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich.

“I’m just hoping that nothing comes out next week,” says Millar. “That’s the big fear. [The sport is] heading in the right direction I think. I genuinely think that the race we saw at the Giro indicated that the racing’s changing – there are different guys up there. It really is a hardcore minority who are still doping, I think. I think we’re going to have a very clean tour, I honestly do. We basically did last year apart from the Floyd [Landis] scenario. But I think it will be clean this year and, if that’s the case, it’ll be a spectacular race.”

As for the London start, Millar would ordinarily be a favourite to win a prologue that starts in Whitehall and finishes after an 8km loop on the Mall. As it is, the Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara is the big favourite, closely followed by Londoner Bradley Wiggins. “Brad has raised his game, which is good – hats off to him,” says Millar. “But Cancellara is going to be the man to beat, he’s on fire. If I come good I can go really well. But my ambition for the Tour as a whole is a stage win – be it in the prologue, a road stage, a time trial, I don’t care.”

Millar has not had the easiest of seasons. A freak crash in January interrupted his training, but he was back on track to take a good victory in the Paris-Nice prologue, riding strongly throughout the first big stage race of the season. Then came the Tour of Romandie, where another crash brought another interruption, this time at a crucial phase. “I went from there to the Tour of Catalunya and just wiped myself; the team had me racing full gas when I should have taken it easy, and that was a mistake.
“Then I tried to keep training up to the Dauphine Libere [the traditional pre-Tour warm-up race] and I only had one day there where I felt like my normal self. The rest of the week I felt unfit and tired. In theory the work’s done; I’ve just got to freshen up now so I’m ready for the Tour. But on a psychological level the last couple of months could have been a lot easier.”

Millar describes it as a “blessing” that he isn’t racing this weekend – today’s national championship in Beverley, near Hull, has fallen victim to the floods. Instead he will travel from Spain to London tomorrow and count down the days until the Tour’s first ever start on British soil.

“I’m kind of relaxed about the whole thing,” he says. “I mean, I’ve just not been enjoying riding my bike, I’ve felt really tired, and that’s so rare for me, but I think it’s going to work out better for me being in Britain. Everyone’s saying how stressful it’ll be to be in London, but not for me – being in the UK, everyone speaking English, everything being very familiar… that’ll be nice for me. I’m looking forward to it.

12 months of controversy

JUNE 2006

Revelations from Operacion Puerto overshadow the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Strasbourg. Pre-race favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso are implicated and expelled – along with 11 others. It is claimed they are linked to a blood doping clinic in Madrid, where 223 bags of cryptically labelled blood was discovered. As well as cyclists, the blood is said to belong to footballers, tennis players and athletes.

JULY

It is announced that Tour de France winner Floyd Landis tested positive for testosterone after stage 17 to Morzine, which he won to reclaim the yellow jersey.

OCTOBER

Ivan Basso is cleared to return to racing – the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) says he has no case to answer.

NOVEMBER

Basso signs for the Discovery Channel team, co-owned by Lance Armstrong.

JANUARY 2007

Landis launches the ‘Floyd Fairness Fund’ which “is committed to provide Floyd with the professional resources to ensure that science, fact and due process decry the sport’s bureaucrat’s unsubstantiated allegations.” In other words, to get the American off his doping charges.

FEBRUARY

Jan Ullrich announces his retirement. “Today I am ending my career as a professional cyclist,” said Ullrich. “I never once cheated as a cyclist.”

MARCH

It is announced that Operacion Puerto has been shelved, with the investigating magistrate pointing out that “contrary to French and Italian legislation… at the time of the investigation Spanish law could not pursue anyone criminally for doping or practices linked to doping.” Shame they didn’t realise that in the first place. The International Association of Professional Cycling Groups responds: “The teams and riders don’t intend to forget about Operacion Puerto” – they vow to get to the bottom of it.

APRIL

Operacion Puerto is back! It is reported that DNA taken from Ullrich matches nine of the bags of blood seized as part of Operacion Puerto

MAY

Basso leaves Discovery Channel and then confesses to being involved in Operacion Puerto. He says he had the “intention to dope” – but didn’t go through with it. He is nevertheless given a two-year ban.

Erik Zabel and Bjarne Riis are among six former Telekom (the team now known as T-Mobile) riders to admit to doping in the past. Riis is stripped of his 1996 Tour de France win.

JUNE

Reports emerge that cycling’s world governing body, the UCI, have been monitoring “six or seven” professionals who train in secret locations wearing dark, un-branded clothing, whom they suspect of using illicit substances. They are dubbed the “men in black”.

The Kazakh-backed Astana team – which includes favourites Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden – deny that their men are the “men in black”, though they did confirm that their riders sometimes went incognito. “If Astana has very occasionally allowed certain riders to train anonymously, that was so that Astana professionals [are] not continually bothered by cyclo-tourists – especially on the Cote d’Azur – and was not through any wish to conceal anything.”

It is rumoured that the identities of the “men in black” will be revealed before the Tour de France, which starts in London on Saturday.