Millar: Cycling Leading Drugs Fight
David Millar, one of Britain’s top riders, has stated his belief that cycling has gone from being one of the sports worst affected by doping to leading the fight against performance-enhancing drugs.
The 32-year old Millar this week had a Commonwealth Games life ban for doping overturned on appeal by Scotland.
Speaking about his sport, he stated: ‘It’s cleaner than it’s ever been. In a decade, we have gone from being probably what was one of the dirtiest professional sports to the sport that is at the vanguard of anti-doping.’
Millar was banned for two years in 2004 and stripped of his 2003 world time trial title after admitting using the blood booster EPO but has now become a prominent anti-doping spokesman.
Speaking about the period before his ban, he commented: ‘My sport was a different sport to what it is now.
‘It was a dirty, fairly dark place for quite a few years. I got very much wrapped up in that for a short period of time and it was almost my compete downfall.’
Despite quarrelling between major events and cycling’s world governing body the UCI, the sport has recently led the way in adopting initiatives from the World Anti-Doping Association.
‘We have introduced some of the most advanced anti-doping methods, from bringing in the ‘whereabouts’ system early on, internal testing programmes for teams and the biological passport,’ said Millar.
