David Millar Quotes

#1. In fact cycling has always been 'saved' by judicial investigations and not by the anti-doping controls we put in place. That's the harsh truth. We have relied on them to clean the sport up.

David Millar

#2. Preparation was a term I was to hear more and more. It had another more sinister meaning. If you were prepared, it meant you were doped.

David Millar

#3. I think if I get the training spot on, the equipment perfect and I'm in the right state of mind, I can get a result there from no competitive action.

David Millar

#4. If you're not at the front, you're not in the race.

David Millar

#5. I'd never considered myself to be that ambitious or driven before, yet I stood there waiting for us to roll out through the start line knowing that taking part wasn't enough. I wanted to be a racer, not just a finisher.

David Millar

#6. But human nature dictates that there will always be cheaters. That's inevitable. Where there's money involved and glory, there are going to be people that cheat, and there will always be ways to cheat.

David Millar

#7. Why should sports men and women get punished harsher than people in the normal world?

David Millar

#8. The smallest issues can become the most important things in life and reality slips away.

David Millar

#9. I shave my legs twice a week. It's hard the first time you do it. But I'm very lazy. For a team photo in December I just did the fronts.

David Millar

#10. I've been proud to be national champion. I've really enjoyed it. I have very little opportunity to remind people that I'm British and it's a nice way of staying in touch. I'm going to defend it fiercely. I want to keep it.

David Millar

#11. I sat there with everything - and I had nothing.

David Millar

#12. Often the best guys are just those that can suffer longer, who don't give up. And it's so easy to give up, when you're on a mountain and it's really hurting. We go through a lot physically.

David Millar

#13. It was ridiculous really. I had just won a major race despite not being in top form, yet I was going to dope.

David Millar

#14. It seemed romantic but also tragic - people would be winning but then lose it all, or crash but fight on, break bones but get back on their bikes and try to finish. Just getting to the end was seen as an achievement in itself.

David Millar

#15. To be brutally honest, it's simple economics. If they want to come into cycling, sponsors need to know the team they are funding is clean, otherwise the risk is just too great.

David Millar

#16. I didn't care about goals or expectations any more, I was just determined to race my heart out.

David Millar

#17. I like my hands. Which is lucky as I have to spend all day looking at them on the handlebars.

David Millar

#18. One group of riders doped, the others alongside them racing clean. You can work out for yourselves which group was fastest.

David Millar

#19. The past is as important as the future, but we only live in the here and now.

David Millar

#20. Everything that's going on within the peloton - there's about ten different races going on. There is also a survival element to it - I love the fact that it's so epic. You crash on a bike, the first thing you do is try and get back up on it. No whinging!

David Millar

#21. What an idiot I'd been. What a spoilt brat. What a bloody fool.

David Millar

#22. Survival is the main objective. There are going to be some awful days, I know that from my background in the sport.

David Millar

#23. The last thing you want near you in a stressful situation is a stressed person.

David Millar

#24. There will always be cheaters. It is human nature. It will never be 100 percent clean, in any sport.

David Millar

#25. The manner in which one loses the battle can sometimes outshine the victory.

David Millar

#26. If the riders, governing bodies, teams, race organisers and media weren't doing anything about it, then what the hell could I, a 20-year-old neo-pro from Scotland, do about it?

David Millar

#27. I had grown used to getting a pat on the back and being told after a good result: 'Well done, David - you should be happy, you're the first clean rider.

David Millar

#28. People do make mistakes and I think they should be punished. But they should be forgiven and given the opportunity for a second chance. We are human beings.

David Millar

#29. In Italy it's full-on stardom when you're a cyclist - eating in restaurants for free, it's great.

David Millar

#30. Cycling is based so much on form, on aesthetics, on class - the way you carry yourself on the bike, the sort of technique you have.

David Millar

#31. I didn't want to take it. I knew it was a powerful drug, but I also knew it was a catabolic drug that consumed the body.

David Millar

#32. I was awarded 'Most Aggressive Rider of the Day', generally given to the most spectacular loser of the day.

David Millar

#33. I'm an accumulation of every single thing I've done, good and bad.

David Millar

#34. This place has been my home. They liked me here. Not any more. Now they will look the other way. Now I don't belong.

David Millar

#35. Now there are two or three teams who are very ethical in their outlook who have opened up the economic benefits and that is probably going to be a turning point in the sport.

David Millar

#36. I'll go [racing] until my body won't let me any more. Someone said to me: "The day you stop, you won't be able to get back on the same way as when you did as a pro." I want to delay that kiss goodbye as long as possible.

David Millar

#37. I think cycling has always had a tradition of being a bit dapper, especially back in the day.

David Millar

#38. Never before had I raced in an angry mood and I couldn't believe how powerful it was. Now I understood why Lance used anger so effectively and why he hated the people he had to beat at the tour.

David Millar

#39. I was not a doper, I told myself - I just injected myself to recover and needed pills to sleep.

David Millar

#40. It was very quiet at the hotel, as if there had been a death in the family. When you have quit the Tour, nobody really knows what to say or do. ( ... ) Everything I'd previously achieved meant nothing; all I was now was a pro rider who couldn't finish the Tour de France.

David Millar

#41. you're not on time unless you're early

David Millar

#42. I might have changed, but that did not mean the sport had.

David Millar

#43. The first time I rode a bike I was four or five. I crashed into the back of a car.

David Millar

#44. The sky was falling down on me and I spent most of the time drunk. It was the only way I could handle it.

David Millar

#45. Nothing was being done to help the non-dopers, to encourage or support them. Even the clean riders like myself and Moncout knew how easy it was to cheat the tests.

David Millar

#46. My epiphany came in that police cell: I realised I was about to lose everything and it didn't bother me, not in the slightest. I'd come to hate cycling because I blamed it for the lie I was living.

David Millar

#47. Cycling is such a stupid sport. Next time you are in a car travelling at 40mph think about jumping out - naked. That's what it's like when we crash.

David Millar