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Transport for London says it is trying to get as many services as | :00:01. | :00:10. | |
possible to run. It is time for HARDtalk. Cycling is one of the | :00:10. | :00:13. | |
most physically demanding of professional sports. It is also one | :00:13. | :00:23. | |
:00:23. | :00:24. | ||
of the most tainted. In the last decade a host of top riders have | :00:24. | :00:28. | |
been exposed as drugs cheats, HARDtalk's guest was one of them. | :00:28. | :00:31. | |
David Millar held the Tour de France yellow jersey and was a | :00:31. | :00:34. | |
world champion before he was busted. Banned for two years he then came | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
back, committed not just to racing but to cleaning up cycling. But is | :00:38. | :00:48. | |
:00:48. | :01:07. | ||
there room for integrity in a world where winning is everything? David | :01:07. | :01:14. | |
Millar, welcome to HARDtalk. You are an elite professional cyclist. | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
You are now 34. You have put yourself through the Tour de France | :01:18. | :01:28. | |
:01:28. | :01:32. | ||
again. Do you care about winning any more? I think that is a natural | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
state for any professional athlete, you care whether you win, for your | :01:35. | :01:45. | |
:01:45. | :01:48. | ||
team, for your team-mates. If we are not winning we are not doing | :01:48. | :01:54. | |
our job. So winning matters for you today as much as it ever did? When | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
you were a young lad setting up a prodigious talent, it is the same | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
feeling? If I didn't have that ambition or desire to achieve | :02:01. | :02:04. | |
success, which is winning, I wouldn't be doing it and I would | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
love it so much. I wouldn't work so hard and I wouldn't go through the | :02:07. | :02:15. | |
suffering. Suffering is the key word that I hear from cyclists a | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
lot. When you say suffering, do you mean mental or physical anguish? | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
The two. It is an integral part of professional cycling - there is a | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
huge amount of physical suffering and there is obviously mental | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
suffering. A lot of the time you are hanging on for dear life | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
waiting for the guy in front of you to crack. Once he cracks the race | :02:32. | :02:42. | |
:02:42. | :02:47. | ||
other and waiting for the guy next to us to crack before you do. A lot | :02:47. | :02:50. | |
of the time it doesn't happen. have been through more than a | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
decade of professional suffering as a cyclist. I would like to go back | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
to the beginning of your career as a boy and a young man. You clearly | :02:57. | :03:00. | |
had a talent for racing your bicycle. What was it that pushed | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
you towards the idea that you could make a life of that, a career? | :03:04. | :03:14. | |
:03:14. | :03:18. | ||
Dreaming more than anything. Watching the Tour de France and | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
realising it was possible... That the sport existed at that level - | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
we could go do it full-time and get paid for it. When I was young it | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
y or glory - I wanted to do the Tour | :03:29. | :03:39. | |
:03:39. | :03:42. | ||
de France. I thought it was an epic thing, something so magnificent and | :03:42. | :03:47. | |
other-worldly. It was idealistic and sort of, yeah, it was a dream. | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
And this is a loaded word, but were you arrogant enough, in the early | :03:50. | :04:00. | |
years of your career, to believe you could be the best? Push | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
yourself all the way, win the Tour de France? For sure, I think | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
arrogance - you have to have an element of arrogance to you as a | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
young sportsman if you want to achieve. If you want to become - if | :04:11. | :04:14. | |
you want to get into the elite level. Just to get in, let alone | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
remain there. You have to go against the grain in many ways. | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
There you were, a cocksure young man. You were good and you knew you | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
were good and you believed you could be at the top of this sport | :04:24. | :04:28. | |
one day. At what time did you realise that a lot of the riders | :04:28. | :04:30. | |
around you were using illegal drugs to enhance their performance? | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
Almost immediately when I turned professional. It was quite obvious | :04:35. | :04:43. | |
that there was doping going on. om | :04:43. | :04:45. | |
seeing suspicious behaviour - ice being delivered to rooms. Asking | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
why ice was being delivered to rooms. Asking, why does my room- | :04:49. | :04:59. | |
mate need ice? And they would just say, oh, it is to keep the EPO cool. | :04:59. | :05:09. | |
:05:09. | :05:12. | ||
That was the drug of choice at the time. I didn't want to believe | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
there was any doping. At the time it wasn't in the media. There had | :05:17. | :05:27. | |
:05:27. | :05:28. | ||
not been any real big drug scandals. This is before the scandal in 1998. | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
To come into this world and have all my dreams shattered and realise | :05:31. | :05:33. | |
that doping was prevalent was shocking. You have written about | :05:33. | :05:43. | |
:05:43. | :05:50. | ||
this a lot. On one ride with a training team-mate you asked him | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
what sort of difference can EPO make. He said it could turn a | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
donkey in to a racehorse. That's the truth. Doping is abuse, but it | :05:56. | :06:06. | |
:06:06. | :06:12. | ||
was amazing there were different degrees of abuse. Some guys would | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
do it to just tweak a little bit, other guys would literally take as | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
much as they possibly could, risking their health and pushing | :06:18. | :06:21. | |
the limits of what was possible. Those guys were the guys who were | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
turning themselves... They became racehorses. You were not a donkey - | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
you were a thoroughbred. Very early on, you led the Tour de France. You | :06:28. | :06:38. | |
:06:38. | :06:39. | ||
had the yellow jersey. I am trying to establish the kind of mindset | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
that put you over the edge from having consistently, for a number | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
of years, saying you would not take drugs because you believe you can | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
win without them, to then deciding - you know what, I will take the | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
EPO. I will become a cheat. This is what is so hard to explain and it | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
is why I wrote the book. I want people to understand the | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
accumulation of factors that kind of pushed me towards doping for the | :07:01. | :07:06. | |
first time. In all honesty there is not one thing I can pinpoint. | :07:06. | :07:13. | |
Didn't you push yourself? Oh, yes, I pushed myself - as I said, there | :07:13. | :07:16. | |
was an accumulation of factors. It was only ever me that made the | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
decision. The buck stops with me. In all honesty, I gave up. I | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
stopped fighting being clean. It was like I was really standing my | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
ground and being stubborn. It almost felt like I was being | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
idealistic for nothing. Nobody cared if I was clean or not. Even | :07:32. | :07:42. | |
:07:42. | :07:44. | ||
your own team manager? At one point they used the phrase, after you had | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
a catastrophic 2001 Tour, you had to retire in the Alps - they told | :07:48. | :07:51. | |
you to go off and "prepare properly". And you said you knew | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
what they meant. I completely knew what they meant. There was a lot of | :07:55. | :08:04. | |
innuendo. To "prepare properly" at that time meant to take drugs. To | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
say that you may have well have said - OK David, you're going to go | :08:08. | :08:18. | |
:08:18. | :08:31. | ||
and take EPO. Did you ever think of saying no? I said no for years. | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
What is interesting is that you stopped saying no after you had a | :08:34. | :08:39. | |
reverse. You were one of the young greats of the Tour de France and | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
you had just had a serious setback. Maybe your pride was injured - you | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
wanted to get to the top. It was hurt. I wanted to be what people | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
expected me to be. I was aspiring to expectations - there was a lot | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
of ego involved. There was pride. There was the desire for glory. | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
Funnily enough, money didn't come into it. It was an ego thing in | :08:58. | :09:01. | |
many ways. To not let down the people around me. There were many | :09:01. | :09:06. | |
things involved. You won as a cheat. You won a terrific World | :09:06. | :09:10. | |
Championship time-trial in 2003, on drugs. I dominated it. During the | :09:10. | :09:17. | |
race I knew I had won it. It was just ticking boxes. It was business | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
time - there were none of the raw sensations that you are supposed to | :09:20. | :09:30. | |
:09:30. | :09:31. | ||
get from the sport. It is supposed to be pure, existential, but as | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
soon as I was taking drugs, especially to that degree - I was | :09:35. | :09:41. | |
firing on all cylinders. It was too easy and I knew I was cheating. I | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
knew that all I was there for was to win. When you stood on the | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
podium, you got the garlands and the big prize, what did you feel? | :09:49. | :09:59. | |
Oh, not much. Not much at all. Empty? There was not much feeling. | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
You were always a smart young man, you had many options in your life. | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
You chose to go down the path of cycling because you could. Because | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
you were articulate and bright, why, at that point, did you not decide, | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
voluntarily, to confess? To stop going down that path that was not | :10:17. | :10:24. | |
satisfying? I couldn't do it. I didn't have the courage to do it. | :10:24. | :10:30. | |
It was an endgame situation. If we are going back to the pride and ego | :10:30. | :10:37. | |
- I would be destroyed. This image that people have of me. I would be | :10:37. | :10:43. | |
disliked. That was something I was scared of doing. It was almost a | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
self- sabotage, the fact that I kept those last two old syringes in | :10:46. | :10:56. | |
:10:56. | :11:06. | ||
my bookshelf. I wanted to get caught. I had to have them catch me. | :11:06. | :11:09. | |
The big question for David Millar is - if the French police hadn't | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
busted you in 2004, partly because they got information from your | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
team-mate, if they hadn't busted you, would you ever have confessed? | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
I can't - I don't know. There was a high chance that, no, I wouldn't | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
have. I don't think I would have been alive now, judging by what | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
happened to some of the other guys. I was on a downward spiral already, | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
emotionally and I was tormenting myself in many ways. I was a very | :11:30. | :11:40. | |
:11:40. | :11:58. | ||
unstable person. I think if I hadn't - if the French police | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
hadn't stepped in and society's governors hadn't taken control the | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
situation I would have destroyed myself. Although I wouldn't have | :12:03. | :12:06. | |
admitted it, I would have burnt that flame a little too long. | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
one hell of a world, isn't it? Where the people were managing you, | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
supposed to be nurturing you and responsible for you are watching | :12:13. | :12:16. | |
you going down that spiral and, frankly, far from preventing it - | :12:16. | :12:19. | |
are encouraging you. That has been one of my biggest things in regards | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
to coming back into the sport and trying to be proactive in educating | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
people on my experiences. One of the things that cut me up the most | :12:27. | :12:30. | |
with what happened to me was that it was preventable. It shouldn't | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
have happened to me. That angered me so much that the people who were | :12:34. | :12:37. | |
supposed to look after me as a young man didn't. They did the | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
opposite - that is something that I have always remembered. Is it | :12:40. | :12:44. | |
personal? Are there particular individuals who you feel would have | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
been happy to watch you, in your own words, come very close to, | :12:47. | :12:54. | |
frankly, ending it all? Yeah. I don't have any anger towards | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
individuals, as such - I have anger that it could have happened, that's | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
all. This has happened to many other guys with people around them, | :13:01. | :13:06. | |
different personalities and backgrounds. It is a generic thing, | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
which is worse, almost. As I said - you never confessed voluntarily. In | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
the end it was forced out of you and then you told all because the | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
police got you. You only got a 2- year ban. Some people think because | :13:18. | :13:28. | |
:13:28. | :13:33. | ||
you didn't confess voluntarily you should have been banned forever. | :13:33. | :13:43. | |
:13:43. | :13:47. | ||
understand their opinions. Bradley Wiggins, a very successful rider | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
who has always insisted that getting drugs out of sport has to | :13:51. | :13:53. | |
be a priority says that cheats should be locked up - imprisoned. | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
And that happens now in Europe. It is criminal to dope in France, | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
Spain, Italy, Belgium. That is in the last few years that has | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
happened. You get locked up now, briefly. But I think it is easy to | :14:03. | :14:11. | |
lose track of the big picture. We are sportsmen. There is a certain | :14:11. | :14:14. | |
vengeance to this idea of lifetime bans. I think every person has the | :14:14. | :14:18. | |
right to rehabilitation and a second chance. I know that is | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
personal opinion because of what happened to me - but I think other | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
people can do it. That might be naive of me, but I think everybody | :14:25. | :14:35. | |
:14:35. | :14:35. | ||
should be given a chance to You have already told me you care | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
enormously about cleaning up the sport. This bores of yours can | :14:40. | :14:46. | |
never be cleaned up as long as one huge shadow remains, the shadow of | :14:46. | :14:53. | |
Lance Armstrong, possibly the greatest cyclist ever -- this sport. | :14:53. | :15:03. | |
:15:03. | :15:04. | ||
There is so much controversy about his alleged use of drugs. This is | :15:04. | :15:07. | |
what the federal investigation in the US is about at the moment. | :15:07. | :15:15. | |
Lance Armstrong has consistently denied using drugs and has said | :15:15. | :15:20. | |
every test he has taken has never proven that he took an illegal | :15:20. | :15:28. | |
substance. Unfortunately that is a whole period in the history of | :15:28. | :15:36. | |
cycling that has a large shadow. We have to give it closure and maybe | :15:36. | :15:41. | |
this investigation will give a closure. I want us to move forward. | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
That is what I want to do with my team and myself personally. I do | :15:46. | :15:51. | |
not want to spell my whole career a dwelling on the last decade. -- | :15:51. | :15:58. | |
spend. This is about the entire credibility of the sport. He is the | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
one cyclist that people can name. He epitomised the courage and | :16:03. | :16:09. | |
strength of the sport. He made these for what it is. My team | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
exists because of him. We are Americans with the American | :16:13. | :16:20. | |
sponsors. That is because of his effect. That is a negative effect | :16:20. | :16:24. | |
of the shadows and the allegations I think as some point I hope we | :16:24. | :16:31. | |
will get closure. Otherwise that will go on forever. Maybe I need | :16:31. | :16:37. | |
you to be honest with me about what you mean by closure. You have | :16:37. | :16:43. | |
written quoting veteran of riders, saying in the 1990s and to | :16:44. | :16:49. | |
thousands it was not possible to win the three-week ruling Tour de | :16:49. | :16:56. | |
France without taking substances. Is that what you believe? That was | :16:56. | :17:04. | |
the wide opinion. I believe that, that is why I took drugs. I thought | :17:04. | :17:10. | |
the only way to achieve greatness was by taking drugs. So use they | :17:10. | :17:20. | |
:17:20. | :17:21. | ||
whole generation -- so you see -- has been painted by that Rush? | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
There are guys who are going to be tested to do not deserve bed. | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
Although there is widespread doping, there are also people who are | :17:30. | :17:36. | |
achieving incredible things clean. They were rare but it was happening. | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
Unfortunately those guys are going to get tarnished. Look at the sides. | :17:41. | :17:47. | |
I know you have studied this closely. Any cyclist cares about | :17:47. | :17:52. | |
how the human body works. There are two scientists who have studied the | :17:52. | :18:00. | |
physiology of cycling in detail and they say the top performances of | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
the 1990s exceeded the physiological capacity of human | :18:04. | :18:11. | |
beings. That is professional cycling. We do exceed the | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
capabilities of human beings. It is nonsense to do a three-week stage | :18:15. | :18:25. | |
race. Doing that clean now... respect they are doing it slower | :18:25. | :18:35. | |
:18:35. | :18:51. | ||
now. You can pose as many numbers on it as you want. -- perk. -- out. | :18:51. | :19:00. | |
-- put. A leaving aside that investigation, you had a long | :19:00. | :19:07. | |
conversation with Lance or Armstrong. He believed he did not | :19:07. | :19:16. | |
do enough. Why did you say that? is a phenomenal human being. His | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
legacy with his foundation... I believe that whatever he has or has | :19:22. | :19:29. | |
not done, he has so much power and influence and I naively believed he | :19:29. | :19:39. | |
could change the sport for the better. That is why I wanted him to | :19:39. | :19:46. | |
make these for a new sport. Do you think he has mess that obligation? | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
-- make this sports a new sport. think so. I always think he could | :19:52. | :20:01. | |
do more. He is Lance Armstrong, he is a once off. You race the Tour de | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
France this year. You are a respected member of the cyclist to | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
do the tour on the professional circuit. 10 you say you believe the | :20:11. | :20:21. | |
:20:21. | :20:24. | ||
professional racers are now stress and honest cap -- can he say? | :20:24. | :20:30. | |
will always be cyclist who do doping. An Austrian a cyclist who | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
was third in the Tour de France three years ago says there are ways, | :20:34. | :20:42. | |
sophisticated ways, in which riders can trick the system if they really | :20:42. | :20:48. | |
wanted. There always will be. What we are doing now in the sport with | :20:48. | :20:52. | |
the biological passport with profiles for each athletes, which | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
instead of looking for the cause and the drug in your urine, looks | :20:57. | :21:03. | |
for the effect it has in your body. For you, they would monitor your | :21:03. | :21:09. | |
blood levels and hormones over two years and would be able to see the | :21:09. | :21:14. | |
blips if something was happening. That is where the sport is going. | :21:14. | :21:20. | |
It is possible to achieve that but it demands a massive amount of | :21:20. | :21:27. | |
money, skill and the bottom line is that it is a criminal activity. You | :21:27. | :21:33. | |
are employing a team of people to cheat the system. Do you actually | :21:33. | :21:38. | |
love the sport any more? You have talked to me about the way you | :21:38. | :21:43. | |
first as a young man, thrown to the walls. The EU actually love for it? | :21:43. | :21:51. | |
I love it more than anything -- do you. I will miss the racing so much | :21:51. | :21:58. | |
and the but. -- and the excitement. The feeling of sidling down the | :21:58. | :22:07. | |
mountain and going further -- cycling. It is a wonderful sport. I | :22:07. | :22:12. | |
have experience many things that people cannot buy. I get to take my | :22:12. | :22:17. | |
cells to places that very few people get to go -- myself. Would | :22:17. | :22:27. | |
:22:27. | :22:30. | ||
it be too much pop psychology to suggest when you were on the 2020 | :22:30. | :22:38. | |
Alps in 2010 and he refused to quit, is that you are seeking redemption? | :22:38. | :22:47. | |
I used to think that redemption was unachievable, a pipe dream. I think | :22:47. | :22:51. | |
I have been very lucky and I feel that I hammered the achieving | :22:51. | :23:01. | |
:23:01. | :23:04. | ||
redemption. That has -- I have achieved. The dead end in the Alps | :23:04. | :23:09. | |
was an epiphany for me. I did realise that I needed to do that | :23:09. | :23:15. | |
for myself. I began by asking whether you cared about winning. | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
Maybe you care more about restoring respect than you do about winning. | :23:20. | :23:29. | |
Yes. I would like respect again. you are not respected, is there | :23:30. | :23:36. | |
anything he can do any more in this sport? I have a responsibility. I | :23:36. | :23:40. | |
live with that responsibility to make a difference. I take pride in | :23:40. | :23:47. | |
that. I think it is a duty. I will always do that. If you ever saw a | :23:47. | :23:51. | |
young man go down the path that you took those years ago what would you | :23:51. | :23:56. | |
say to him? If he was considering getting the edge by taking | :23:56. | :24:00. |