jbonus

From the T-Mobile Team website:

"Britain's former leading rider David Millar last night confirmed his intention to return to the professional peloton in 2006 after completing his two-year ban for doping infractions.

The 28-year-old Scot, a multiple stage-winner in the Tour de France, is currently studying a number of offers from leading teams but he is yet to make a decision on his future.

"I'm grateful for the interest teams are showing in me and I hope to make a successful return to racing in 2006." Millar was suspended for two years in 2004 after admitting to using the banned blood booster EPO. As the reigning world time-trial champion from 2003, Millar was stripped of his title after his confession, made during a police investigation into his former team Cofidis.

His ban was eventually backdated to June, when he made the confession, and thus it will end in June 2006. This makes him available to compete in next year's Tour de France and he is currently well into a 12-month training plan that is intended to bring him to form for the race."

https://www.t-mobile-team.com/cms/tmo.../id=41212.html

jfmckenna

He did the time for the crime and fessed up. Good for him.

tekhna

Should ban guys like this for life.

squeegy200

No no no, they should mimic Major league Baseball and ban positive tests for 14 days.

YMCA

A penalty of two years is perfect. Enough to get someone to think a little harder next time and long enough to make a dent in their wallet (no salary).

tekhna

As an avid baseball fan, I think my disgust with the way MLB has dealt with steroids has snuck into my perceptions of other sports. Baseball is a case study of lax steroid enforcement.

Smoothie104

Too bad Lance will never fess up

YMCA

Would you?

MacMan

Millar's timing meant he will at least have something of a career to revive. He got in before the 2-year Pro Tour sanction clause went into effect.

ed073

I agree.


Plus there's no one else in the peloton who'll wear Oakley's most ridiculous prototypes.....

HigherGround

Prior to his confession, I thought David Millar was an overpaid cry baby. He always had something to whine about. However, I was impressed how he dealt with this event. Granted, he confessed while being interrogated by the police, but he seemed to handle it in a much more mature manner than he had previously displayed.

I think a lifetime ban is too severe for a first time offender. Who hasn't f'ed up at some time in their life? However, guys like Dario Frigo annoy the crap out of me. He screwed up at the Giro, gave a tearful song and dance, came back to the peloton... and got busted for the same thing a few years later. Yes, it was his wife who got caught with the drugs, but I doubt anybody would believe they weren't for Dario (and maybe others). He's the type of loser who should get a lifetime ban plus a good, hard kick in the chamois.

dolophonic

oh no you didnt....people like you are so high and mighty...millar's done the time ...let him back.

HigherGround

Who were you referring to? I was in favor of letting Millar back, based on how he handled the situation, but in favor of banning Frigo (a repet offender) for life.

davismule

Millar is an a-hole. He used to walk around like he was the coolest rider ever all the while cheating.
He robbed other riders of their glory and two years is nothing.
Should be kicked for life.
That will TRULY "get someone to think a little harder next time."
What a loser!!!

zero

I think two years is good. Two years is just long enough to really be punishment, but at the same time, we want these guys to come back and race again before they start loosing their hair (my apologies Levi)

Mojo GoGo

I feel bad for the riders in some ways because until the teams start to get sanctioned the pressure to perform and teams turning a blind eye will continue to exist. I'd suggest a system more akin to the NCAA and how schools on probation get scholarships taken away. If your rider tests positive he sits for some specified period of time (I think something between a month and a year is sufficient) but the team forfeits 1 starting position for races for 1 year. In this way, teams are impacted so there is an incentive to not systematically dope riders but no so severe that a team is crippled.

Having said all that, I think you probably have to be pretty stupid to get caught with the current testing procedures and means for circumventing positive results...

maalea

"Beter living through chemistry"

97 Teran

What's the status of the Tour organizers' being able to exclude individuals from the race? I imagine that ability has been lost since Tricky Dicky Virenque brought in teams of skanky lawyers to get back in in 1999 or whenever that was... too bad. I don't think Millar should ever again be able to race the Worlds, or the Tour, since he doped for those 2 specific events. The punishment should actually mean something- let him make his living again, but with no glory.

Flaneur

I have read nothing at all supportive of David Millar since the doping offence took place, least of all from the many British contributors to this site. Our general reaction can be summarised as depressed and somewhat ashamed of this man's actions. Now he has served his suspension, he should be allowed to resume his career, with as many tests as the UCI deems necessary but his reputation is tarnished beyond recovery.

I hope contributors who are demanding a life ban for Millar, also condemn Tyler Hamilton, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, the L.A. Olympic blood dopers, etc.? If you can't forgive, at least be consistent.

puddin' legs

Pro careers/money earning years are short. Two years is a significant piece out of a very short economic lifespan, and most cyclists aren't making anything like the money in the US majors.

cosmo_the_third

actually, it's 10 days. Weak sauce, indeed.

Banning Millar for life would be a tough call, seeing as he admitted to EPO use when all they had on him was an empty vial of Eprex and two syringes (I remember reading they were unused, but I can't find that anywhere...) from his house. He kept them next to his Worlds gold medal to remind him how he won it, but he could have just as easily claimed a friend gave it to him as a joke (certainly would have been my course of action, were I a) good a cycling and b) the doping type).

Millar claims to have only doped twice, and considering he pretty much just up and confessed, I see no reason not to believe him. It's a shame people want to toss him into the same wastebasket as a guy like Virenque who claimed to be clean even with mountains of evidence against him, admitting guilt only when it was forced upon him. It's one of the reasons why I think the Dopers Suck ethos is so moronic.

christo87

How can people say Dave readily confessed?? He denied it throughout spring 2004 before finally getting nailed. How would all the clean, honest riders feel? Dave is just a weak-minded tosser who is always looking for the easy way out.

I reckon a life ban for both him and Tyler Hamilton, whom I put on the same arrogance level as Millar. Some serious justice must be handed out to these guys, to discourage the rest of the lying, cheating bastards

jbonus

Update: David Millar just signed with Saunier Duval.

27.09.2005/ Britain's David Millar, currently serving a ban for doping, will make his professional cycling comeback at next year's Tour de France after signing for the Spanish team Saunier Duval, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Monday.

Millar was banned for two years after admitting using the banned hormone EPO (Erythropoietin) but his two-year sanction ends in June 2006. Millar has now signed to race the Tour with the Spanish team that is run by Italian brothers Pietro and Vittorio Algeri. Millar said last week he has been studying a number of offers from teams, reportedly QuickStep, Liberty Seguros and Illes Balears.

The 28-year-old Scot, born in Malta but who grew up in Hong Kong, said recently he was fully committed to getting his career back on track.

Millar's two-year ban, handed down after he confessed to EPO-use in June 2004, ends on June 23 next year, just nine days before the 2006 Tour de France kicks off with a seven-kilometer prologue in Strasbourg.

The British road race championship on June 25 could be his first comeback race and the only opportunity for Millar to prove his form.

Millar's return to the top level of professional racing is faster than it would have been had his suspension occurred after the creation of the UCI's new ProTour series. The ProTour's ethics rules require that riders remain ineligible to compete in those events for a period twice that of the original suspension.

https://www.t-mobile-team.com/cms/tmo.../id=41212.html

cosmo_the_third

In early 2004, Philippe Gaumont, who has a string of dope positives dating back to 1996, was tossing out doping allegations like Halloween candy. Along with Millar, he implicated Cedric Vassuer, Mederic Clain, team manager Alain Bondue and pretty much any other name he could come up with, trying to cut some sort of deal. Millar is still the only person implicated by Gaumont to turn up positive. It seems pretty clear to me that in calling Millar a doper, the Frenchman just got lucky. Guamont recently published a book in which he describes being in a pot Belge-induced haze for much of his professional career. If this guy were accusing Richard Virenque of doping, I still wouldn't take him seriously; I can't imagine that, back in Jan. 2004, anyone outside the editorial staff at l'Equipe did either.

Lifetime ban or not, people are always going to dope. You have my personal guarantee on that. Gaumont said he'd swallow "everything that the doctor gave me without asking questions." That's not just risking your career, that's risking your life. Some riders, like Virenque and Dario Frigo, have been pretty cavalier about doping and deserve to get the book thrown at them. But others guys, like Pantani and Gaumont, need psychiatric help more than anything else. Sure, I suppose it's natural to want to punish the arrogant riders more (BTW, you might be the only person ever to describe Tyler Hamilton as "arrogant"), but to seriously do so would be an ethical breech to defeat the point of dope controls in the first place.

Smoothie104

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the vast majority, if not the entire peleton is using, someone posted earlier about how Millar is a cheat and robbed clean riders of their glory etc... For some reason, none of these riders seem to really be that mad about it, and you will see David back in the peleton, laughing with his old friends and carrying on business as usual. Him and Lance were really good buddies, and probably still are. If Lance was still competeing you know with all the activity in the press etc, regarding the EPO, you know his publicist would try to avoid any shots of the 2 of them hanging out, smiling or shaking hands.

The fact that he got caught, makes him unlucky, but certainly not un-popular with the rest of the "charged-up" peleton