MARK Cavendish is likely to be Great Britain's headline act at the Tour de France, but David Millar is hoping to steal some of the limelight from his compatriot.
On Saturday in Monaco, the 32-year-old Scot will begin his eighth Tour de France looking to continue a colourful and highly eventful career.
Millar has worn all four Tour jerseys – yellow for race leader, green for points, polka dot for King of th
e Mountains and white for best young rider – and is in a bullish mood. He said: "I've a feeling I'm going to be 100 per cent, which is going to give me a real shot at it."
Millar crashed in the Paris-Nice "race to the sun" in March, fracturing his collarbone which forced him to re-assess and re-schedule his season. The 32-year-old entered the Giro d'Italia, withdrawing after 15 stages before placing ninth in the Dauphine Libere – the Tour de France tune-up – last month.
"It (the Giro) was the last thing that I wanted to do at the beginning of the year but breaking my collarbone threw things up in the air," he added. "The way I see it, breaking my collarbone is a blessing in disguise. I missed some key racing, but it's allowed me to disconnect and focus my energies on the Tour de France. Now I'm back in control of everything and it's worked out well."
Millar is likely to sacrifice personal goals for Garmin-Slipstream team leader Christian Vande Velde, who was fourth in the 2008 Tour, but Saturday's prologue in Monte Carlo is a chance for him to clinch a first stage win at cycling's premier event since 2002. "Definitely it's one of the bigger targets, but the Tour de France, you can't go all out on the first day, you've got to think of the other 24 days," added Millar.
One of the reasons for Millar's barren run in the Tour is due to his two-year ban for doping which ended in 2006. Millar never tested positive but confessed to the use of blood doping agent EPO.
Now a fervent advocate of drug-free sport and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency's athletes' commission, Millar said:
"Even in the last five years, we've gone from what was essentially a doping culture to an anti-doping culture."
The full article contains 404 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
