didn’t feel like riding my bike, I didn’t ride my bike.’
And then David Millar says this, which, given the wrecking ball through his life his arrest became, is perhaps the saddest thing of all: ‘I could have had a good career without doping – it is possible.’
When he finally appeared in court, in late 2006, David Millar stuck to his original statement. He repeated what he’d told me, that doping came through facing up to his ‘responsibilities’, and thinking that he owed something to his team and sponsor.
‘I was getting paid a lot of money to guarantee my results. The management made it clear that I had a lot of responsibilities. But the first time I doped it had nothing to do with money. I didn’t even understand my contract very well at the time. I didn’t even know that I could have had a one hundred per cent increase in my salary with twenty more UCI points. I blame myself – I assume responsibility for what I have done. But I feel let down and taken advantage of, because Cofidis took a lot of liberties. They screwed up. They can remember how I arrived at the team, nineteen years old. I was so naive, so naive. It was my dream and I didn’t realise how good I was. They had nothing for me.’
Cofidis, he says, must have known that he was flirting with disaster, yet they did not intervene. ‘They’re not stupid,’ says David, as he signals to the waiter for another beer. ‘They were running a professional cycling team.’
Did doping become a safety net to ensure results when you were short of training or out of form?
‘No – this is the paradox. When you boost your performance artificially you become ten times more serious than you have ever been. You don’t screw up. You say, “This is no longer sport – this is my job.” The moment you dope, you become ten times more professional.’
THE CLEAN MACHINE
JULIAN CLARK SITS in a gastropub in Kent, fiddling with his club sandwich. There is an uncharacteristic pause. Normally Julian talks non-stop, but today, he is choosing his words carefully. Memories of his three years managing the Linda McCartney Cycling Team are flooding back.
Most of them are not good.
Clark has an extraordinary story to tell. Almost single-handedly, he converted a weekend shopping trip to Sainsbury’s into a groundbreaking opportunity in international sports sponsorship. His whimsical idea of creating a British cycling team that could race the Tour de France became a reality. Julian drove the Linda McCartney cycling team to the brink of European success – and then steered his runaway train into a precipice.
Julian once sent me a draft for a book called
Debt, Drugs and Eating Meat
, which is a blunt but accurate summary of his journey from infatuated cycling fan to bankruptcy and breakdown. He has always been a seat-of-the-pants character. He finished racing in motocross in 1990, after a bad crash left him with a blood clot on the brain. He was only twenty-five. After a year’s recovery, he started racing in triathlons. ‘I enjoyed the bike-racing part the most,’ he recalls. ‘Various people told me that I was strong on the bike and that I should do some road racing.’
He adjusted well to serious competition. ‘I was a fourth-category amateur but I rode a race called the Les England Memorial down in Bletchingley and Chris Lillywhite, John Tanner – all the relevant elite riders in Britain – were there. I’d already had a win in a second-cat race, but that day I got into a breakaway with Lillywhite and the others and was still there at the end, before I blew up – big time.’
But Clark had earned their respect and he and Lillywhite became friends. ‘They all came and talked to me afterwards and said I was strong, so I started training with Chris, because we lived locally to each other. I was completely smitten with the sport, overwhelmed. I thought it was fantastic. I’d come from pro racing in motocross to cycling and I wanted to be a pro bike
And then David Millar says this, which, given the wrecking ball through his life his arrest became, is perhaps the saddest thing of all: ‘I could have had a good career without doping – it is possible.’
When he finally appeared in court, in late 2006, David Millar stuck to his original statement. He repeated what he’d told me, that doping came through facing up to his ‘responsibilities’, and thinking that he owed something to his team and sponsor.
‘I was getting paid a lot of money to guarantee my results. The management made it clear that I had a lot of responsibilities. But the first time I doped it had nothing to do with money. I didn’t even understand my contract very well at the time. I didn’t even know that I could have had a one hundred per cent increase in my salary with twenty more UCI points. I blame myself – I assume responsibility for what I have done. But I feel let down and taken advantage of, because Cofidis took a lot of liberties. They screwed up. They can remember how I arrived at the team, nineteen years old. I was so naive, so naive. It was my dream and I didn’t realise how good I was. They had nothing for me.’
Cofidis, he says, must have known that he was flirting with disaster, yet they did not intervene. ‘They’re not stupid,’ says David, as he signals to the waiter for another beer. ‘They were running a professional cycling team.’
Did doping become a safety net to ensure results when you were short of training or out of form?
‘No – this is the paradox. When you boost your performance artificially you become ten times more serious than you have ever been. You don’t screw up. You say, “This is no longer sport – this is my job.” The moment you dope, you become ten times more professional.’
THE CLEAN MACHINE
JULIAN CLARK SITS in a gastropub in Kent, fiddling with his club sandwich. There is an uncharacteristic pause. Normally Julian talks non-stop, but today, he is choosing his words carefully. Memories of his three years managing the Linda McCartney Cycling Team are flooding back.
Most of them are not good.
Clark has an extraordinary story to tell. Almost single-handedly, he converted a weekend shopping trip to Sainsbury’s into a groundbreaking opportunity in international sports sponsorship. His whimsical idea of creating a British cycling team that could race the Tour de France became a reality. Julian drove the Linda McCartney cycling team to the brink of European success – and then steered his runaway train into a precipice.
Julian once sent me a draft for a book called
Debt, Drugs and Eating Meat
, which is a blunt but accurate summary of his journey from infatuated cycling fan to bankruptcy and breakdown. He has always been a seat-of-the-pants character. He finished racing in motocross in 1990, after a bad crash left him with a blood clot on the brain. He was only twenty-five. After a year’s recovery, he started racing in triathlons. ‘I enjoyed the bike-racing part the most,’ he recalls. ‘Various people told me that I was strong on the bike and that I should do some road racing.’
He adjusted well to serious competition. ‘I was a fourth-category amateur but I rode a race called the Les England Memorial down in Bletchingley and Chris Lillywhite, John Tanner – all the relevant elite riders in Britain – were there. I’d already had a win in a second-cat race, but that day I got into a breakaway with Lillywhite and the others and was still there at the end, before I blew up – big time.’
But Clark had earned their respect and he and Lillywhite became friends. ‘They all came and talked to me afterwards and said I was strong, so I started training with Chris, because we lived locally to each other. I was completely smitten with the sport, overwhelmed. I thought it was fantastic. I’d come from pro racing in motocross to cycling and I wanted to be a pro bike
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