DRUG abuser turned anti-doping campaigner David Millar hopes for a "second chance" and has hinted he is ready to challenge the British Olympic Association ruling which bans him from competing in the London Games in 2012.
The 32-year-old Scot, who served a two-year ban between 2004 and 2006 after admitting to taking the banned blood booster EPO, was an interested observer as Dwain Chambers mounted an ultimately unsuccessful crusade for inclusion in the British team
for the Beijing Games last year.
"I obviously followed it, but it was a bit rushed, because it was last minute," Millar said. "It will be interesting to see how it develops, if that is challenged on a legal basis."
Millar stormed into the limelight aged 23 with victory in the prologue at the Tour de France in 2000 and held on to the yellow jersey for three days. He took part in the Sydney Olympics of that year, finishing 16th in the individual time-trial.
It remains his only Olympics to date, with Athens and Beijing ruled out due to the bylaw – challenged last summer in the High Court by Chambers, who served a ban for steroid THG – imposed by the BOA.
"I did a two-year sanction and basically I've been banned from two Olympics," added Millar, who is set to ride in the Dauphine Libere race beginning in Nancy, France, on Sunday.
"At the moment it (the Olympics] is impossible, but we'll see what happens. We'll go another year or so and see if I should take action or not."
Millar is now on the World Anti-Doping Agency athletes' committee. He never tested positive – a police raid on his Biarritz home discovered his misdemeanour as he had kept two used syringes on his bookshelf to remind him of his indiscretion. But he revealed all, served his suspension and was stripped of his 2003 world time trial title and his stage 19 win in the 2003 Tour de France.
He rides for Garmin Slipstream and believes his work with WADA and UK Sport should be taken into account if he decides to challenge the Olympic ban. "I'm very proactive and I'd like to think that could perhaps contribute to me doing the Olympics again before I retire," added Millar, who has won all four major jerseys at the Tour de France – yellow for race leader, white for young rider, polka dot for king of the mountains and green for points leader.
"I'm a big believer of giving people second chances, for obvious reasons. I think that's the way it should be. I've paid my price. If I have the will, I'll find a way to get back at the Olympics."
London, when Millar will be 35, is his last chance, but for now, he is content to surround himself with the world's elite at the Tour de France, which begins in Monaco on 4 July.
"The Tour de France is the Olympics every year for me at the moment," he said. "That's only a month away, so once that's behind me I'll have a think."
Manxman Mark Cavendish, the leading sprinter in road racing and Britain's leading Tour de France rider, recently revealed he was tested 64 times in 2008, when he won four stages of the sport's showpiece stage race.
Millar added: "I don't keep count, but it'd be in that ballpark. It's a lot."
The full article contains 574 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
