Is Millar a lying, cheating snake in the grass?

jcjordan

I still do not belive that the majority are on some sort of drug enhancement. I do belive that there is a minority who are using and if caught should recive life bans. also DNF them from every race they have every been in and collect back all the trophys, prize money etc. Also sponsors should be allowed to sue the athelete (ie make this standard in all sports) for fraud.

__________________
"Pain does not last, bones heal and chicks dig scars"

toze

As the great JOAQUIM AGOSTINHO used to say you dont win bike races with a steak and a bottle of mineral water.

Julesa

Granted an admission of guilt tends to point to Millar indeed being a stinking rat but isn't anyone else concerned about these reports of a 48 hour interrogation by the French Police? It's not like he murdered someone exactly. Is this sort of behaviuor warranted for these sorts of crimes? Would we be up in arms about this sort of treatment of he hadn't made his admission? Do pro cyclists hand over any right to civil liberties when they join up or something?

All I can say is if Brad McGee ever gets done for drugs I will stop being interested immediately.

tafi

Well put it this way. In taking drugs Millar has defrauded his team management, business contacts, team mates, competetors, fans, merchandisers, sponsors, the UCI and race organisers. He has earned millions from the sport which he has treated with contempt. That deserves a pretty hefty kick in the arse dont you think?
Who needs to commit armed robbery when you can do it on a bike?

tafi

I wish I had your optimism pal. It is all to easy to avoid being caught. Jesus Manzano manged to avoid it for a good many years and we all know how. This means that anyone can do it.

The Irony is that the AIS was on the verge of develpoing a set of marker compunds which could be added to all banned drugs to garauntee detection but the Government stomped on it.

I sincerely hope that if it all blows up it does so now so that all the mess can be cleared up, practises published and banned, riders punished and new proceedures developed to ensure that banned drugs can be detected. proceedures should also be common to all countries and across all federations so we can avoid rediculous situations like Igor Gonzales Degaldeano being prevented from starting the Tour for using his asthma medication.

James Felstead

I just don't know how anyone can still cling to the belief that the peleton is primarily clean?

As included in most news reports on Millar - he has never tested positive in his career. Okay - there are no hard facts at this stage, and yes the presumption is innocence until guilt is proven (although personally I don't think cycling has this luxury at the moment) but he has been accused by a convicted former teammate and has now reportedly confessed to EPO use after evidence was found in his apartment. I'm pretty sure this one is going to play out the way it looks.

So - if a high profile, tour de france stage winning, world champion can evade a positive test for several years of competition what is there to suggest that this is an isolated case?

This year there have been how many deaths from heart attacks? There has been the Kelme scandal - with a former rider appearing to spill the beans on team organised doping. Okay the guy had an agenda but he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. Also the Cofidis scandal where again there was the implication that teams or at least team leaders were organising doping (hence the continued investigation into Millar). Then after the Giro there were the highly suspicious phone taps implicating several big riders from big teams such as Fassa and Saeco.

Okay - I accept that in each of these individual cases due to lack of direct eveidence it might be hard to prove categorically that the rider is guilty. If you take all of these things in an overall perspective can you honestly stand there and say that the peleton is mainly clean?

I used to think that - you know - cycling is tested more than almost any other sport, it's just a few bad apples, if riders were doping they'd get caught, surely their teams would know etc etc. ie all the usuall excuses that practically everyone (includung people on forums like this one) trot out whenever there's a case in the papers.

But I just don't believe that any more. And more importantly I'm pretty sure that the outside world don't either. Cycling will never raise it's profile to the level it could be whilst it has this monkey on it's back. I accept that the sport has probably never been clean and that this is part of the problem but if the sport wants to operate within the structures that other sports do ie the olympics and so on it needs to sort itself out. It amazes me that teams are still able to find sponsors these days - there is no way if I had a company looking to sponsor a sports team I'd take the risk with a cycling team. The bad publicity is so damaging - say Festina and try to think of anything other than dope scandal. It's pretty hard!

There has to be some form of amnesty and a real genuine attempt by the UCI and all of the teams involved to actually sort this problem out rather than simply try and manage the PR to limit damage to the sport. Lifetime bans would seem a sensible way to start.

Disppointed and dissalusioned form the UK

James

limerickman

This is deja-vu.
The comments here mirror the comments made by fans in the immediate aftermath of the Festina affair and here we are six years later, with the exact same issues dogging this sport.

On a human level, I do have sympathy with David Millar – he has done something, illegal on the face of it, for which he may have to pay a very high price.
Is Millar’s alleged behaviour symptomatic of him or the sport ?
I think it is both.
I think the sport – and one has to lay the blame entirely at the feet of the UCI – has not been willing to face up to the problem of drug abuse since at least 1998 and Festina.
Look at the reaction of our sport when someone criticizes it – look at how Armstrong howled when Dick Pound made criticisms (rightly).
The wider public consider cycling to be the most corrupt of sports.

Apologists will claim that cycling is more tested than any other sport – and thus will claim that if the same stringent methods of testing were adopted in other sports that these sports too would be uncovered.
This smacks of denial and is a cop out.
What goes on in other sports – is the responsibility of those other sports.
No one in cycling can be responsible for what does or doesn’t happen in other sports.
But we must all take responsibility for what happens in OUR sport.
Therefore it is up to cyclists, cycling administrators, sponsors and fans to ensure that the behaviour of everyone within THIS sport is above board and not to use other sports as an excuse for not tackling the drug problem in cycling.
It behoves us to get our sport in order – so that when the issue of drugs is raised, we are in a position to state confidently that cycling is clean.
It seems obvious to me that the culture of doping is very engrained in our sport.

The sport also makes great play about how so few cyclists actually fail drug tests.
This also forms part of the culture of denial.
Dave Millar never failed a test.
Philippe Gaumont explained in detail how one can dope and avoid detection.
Jesus Manzano also detailed the systematic process of detection avoidance at Kelme.
Willy Voet’s book details how Festina were able to evade procedures.
Emma O’Reilly has detailed how USPS evaded drug detection.
So because someone has never failed a drug test doesn’t mean that he doesn’t prove that he doesn’t dope.
Unfortunately, it is now evident that cyclists and their teams are so far ahead of detection that the presumption of innocence – which should hold – is effectively redundant given what continues to be uncovered in our sport.
We cannot know that someone is clean even though the test show he is clean.

The cheats are now threatening the very fabric of the sport.
Sponsors are leaving the sport – the popularity of races are diminishing – there is currently a backlash against the TDF in France because the French associate the sportwith corruption and drug taking.
The French government realise that this international event is under serious threat and they want to see the prestige of the event restored before public opinion moves to have it banned.
I commend the civil authorities such the police and customs for the work that the UCI should be doing in exposing cyclings drug culture and drug trafficking.

Will Millars exposure change the sport ?
I thought that Festina 1998 was going to change the sport but it didn’t.
The same dysfunctional attitude that prevailed in 1998 is still with us today.
I think that we will need to see a few more big fish being exposed before the culture changes – and I also think that the regulation of the sport needs to be taken away from the UCI immediately.
It is obvious that the UCI is unable – and unwilling – to take the steps necessary to rebuild this sports credibility.
You just have to look at how it prevaricated about signing up to WADA.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again and I will continue to repeat – that unless and until these clowns are replaced with people who are prepared to what is necessary, this
sport will continue to lose what little credibility is left.
The 1999 TDF “the tour of renewal and hope” I think they called it – happened to record the fastest time ever – up to that point
And it has continued to get faster and faster since 1998.
“But they’re all clean – look, they haven’t failed a dope test – they must be clean” = is the collective cry.
Indeed – and they expect us to buy the line that a clean rider will be able to cycle more quickly than his drug propelled colleague too.
Indeed.

In the Sunday Times yesterday, David Walsh stated that he thought that Millar was clean when he started in the peloton in 1998.
Walsh also points to the fact that Millar was very anti-doping in all his public utterances.
Walsh asks the question, if what is alleged about Millar is true, what happened to Millar to make him decide to use drugs ?
It’s a fair question and perhaps it will be answered in time.

tafi

What is needed is a commission into the medical practices of the sport which can subpoena any rider, team manager, sogneiur, team doctor or other team official along with testing officials and those who develop procedures.
The commission needs to find out all the methods of avoidance of tests and the methods used to avoid detection by those tests. Many have already been revealed by Jesus Manzano and those who have ignored him have done so at their peril. The fact that riders associations chose to ostrasise him rather than welcome an inquiry to prove that the sport is clean is a major concern to me as a fan and as a cyclist.

My suspicion is that many riders see the oportunity to lose contracts and sponsorship deals (ie money) rather than the oportunity to be able to compete on a level playing field where hard work and ability is rewarded.

Spider1977

It makes you wonder how many "recreational" riders (ie vets, local club riders) are tempted to have a go at some of these drugs because they see how successful it can make the pro's. It might seem a wierd move for competing in races that mean nothing to anyone but the people in them, but you'd be surprised how far people let their ego push them.

Because I have taken up cycling recently and am an avid follower of the TdeF and other cycling events a lot of non-cycling friends ask me about what is going on with drugs in the sport. It is the first thing that lay people associate with the sport. it really does have an image problem. Pretty soon sponsors will begin to question their investment if something is not done. Not only that but governments will stop funding development programs and then the sport will be ruined.

Unfortunately every successful cyclist and every exceptional performance will be questioned about whether it was drug enhanced. This is no way to celebrate great efforts.

The sport needs a complete overhaul from the administration all the way through to the athletes and support teams. It is currently in danger of dying a painful death at professional and elite amateur level.

In the end it won't change what I do. I'll still ride my weekend race and enjoy my training. So what do I care? Not much really, until I see the career prospects of a promising young athlete come to nought because the sport has been ruined.

What disappoints me most about the Millar affair is the total hypocrisy of the man. In the most recent issue of Procycling he is quoted as saying

"You have to understand my position. You're talking about absolute crap from this lunatic Gaumont. That's what it is and it's hard to express to people the degree of crap this is."

Well Mr Millar the crap seems to have hit the fan and landed on you!

tongo

Doesn't the whole thing seem a bit odd? Millar has been very much at the center of a huge investigation and scandal for the past couple of months, and yet there are used ampoules of EPO lying around his flat...

As of today only L'Equipe has made these allegations - might it not be better to get some official corroboration or (hopefully) refutation? If he is guilty, of course, it's an even bigger disappointment.

limerickman

www.cyclingnews.com reports that Millar is due in court on
Thursday.

limerickman

Spider,

Indeed you have highlighted the problem – what responsible adult would allow their child to enter this sport on a professional basis ?
And you are correct, the general public think that cycling is totally corrupt.
And I have to say that the LA story is part of the problem.
When I mention in conversation that I cycle – I am invariably asked how can a guy who had cancer, is now able to win the TDF ?
Or, if the TDF is so grueling how can a guy recover and beat guys who were not ill
throughout their careers, so easily ?
I find that I have to try to defend our sport against the common sentiment “well they’re known for drug taking”.
This is the perception.
And the perception is all that matters.

You refer to sponsors as well.
Already when have seen sponsors leaving our sport – look at Mapei, Mr.Squnzi did not want his company name associated with a tainted sport.
What company would want to expose their name and product to possible allegations of cheating ?
ONCE left the sport too – allegedly, in part, because of the bad perception that this sport has.

As regards Millar – if the allegations are true, he is in serious trouble.
If he used stuff, he does have personal responsibility for taking this decision to dope but the prevailing culture in the pro ranks is also to blame.
Willy Voet said it in his book – even if an opponent is clean, a rider will always believe that his opponent is using something.
Most riders are convinced that his opponents are using stuff – maybe Millar came to believe that he needed to use something.
I refer you to Voet and Virenque.
According to Voet, Virenque was convinced that he couldn’t do well in the world road race championships and he pleaded with Voet to get him some EPO.
Voet told him that he had used too much EPO already, but Virenque was insistant.
So Voet mixed some milk and water and placed it in a syringe and told Virenque that he was giving him some EPO.
Virenque emboldened because he thought he had a shot of EPO – went out and nearly won the title (I think he finished second)

James Felstead

looks like 'YES' is the answer

GuyStevens

Latest is that Millar has officially admitted to EPO use in the past (2001 and 2003) but denies the current charges (which begs the question why were used vials found in his flat?). He has removed himself from British Olympic selection and will face the chop from Cofidis if he repeats the admission to the team's officials.