by David Millar
‘Shari?’ He shrugged as he wiped the dirt from my face. ‘She’s gone for a look around the town.’
I was devastated. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, that it was cool she wasn’t interested in my racing, that I had no right to expect her to hang around at the finish line, but I was hurt.
After the podium presentation, I showered at a friend’s house and that was when I realised how upset I really was. I just stood in the shower, letting the water wash over me. Finally, we got in the car and began driving down to Biarritz. Pissed off and confused, I barely said a word the whole way.
Harry was waiting in Biarritz and we partied for most of the weekend, finally grinding to a halt late on Sunday night. On the Monday, I flew out to compete in Paris–Camembert, a one-day race in northern France, but I didn’t get to the hotel until late that evening. At the start of the race I felt terrible, but as it went on I got better and better.
Once again there was a hard finishing circuit, and before long there were only about twenty riders left. Moncoutie and I started attacking one after the other, taking it in turns to exhaust them. I kept attacking, then getting caught and dropped, then chasing back and attacking once more. My last chase back came with about 5 kilometres to go, but Frenchman Laurent Brochard was already clear and heading for victory. The rest of us were racing for second.
I looked around the group, picked Scott Sunderland as the fastest guy and glued myself to his back wheel. It turned out to be a good call. Scott was the fastest, and gave me such a good lead out that I came around him in the sprint and took second. I won a ton of Camembert cheese and a shitload of admiration from Harry.
By the Tour of Picardie, two weeks later, Shari had returned to Australia. We were having problems again, and I was on the phone arguing with her even before the start of the first stage. I was so angry when I got to the start that I was first to attack on a long, flat and windy stage – hardly the best tactic, yet my anger made it work.
I was off the front of the bunch all day with different moves and finally finished third on the stage. 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. But I’m not very good at being angry – it wasn’t something that I was able to tap into at will.
More and more, I was proving myself as the leader of the team. I was a presence in all the races I started, but I was getting so wrapped up in what I was doing, and the team had become so dependent on me scoring points, that I hadn’t thought about taking it easy and peaking for the Tour.
I was going to every race and slaughtering myself. I needed somebody to tell me to take it easy, to tell me when to back off. After the Tour of Picardie, I rested for a few days, and then planned a big training block before my final pre-Tour de France racing programme.
That training block was horrible. I did three 6-hour days but felt rotten and had no idea how, only a couple of weeks earlier, I’d been so strong. But, convinced I’d rested enough, I kept on training.
My only goal in my next race, the Bicicleta Vasca stage race, was to win the time trial. Once again, Lance was there and he was aiming for the time trial as well. I wasn’t too confident as I’d suffered in the previous day’s mountain stage, yet I won, beating him into second place. I seemed to be the only person surprised by this result and it was clear that I was no longer the young hopeful. Results were expected of me now – surprises were a thing of the past.
The classic Tour de France preparation race, the Dauphiné Libéré, in the mountainous south-east of France, came next. Although I’d felt terrible in training since finishing the Bicicleta Vasca a week earlier, I hoped it was simply a bad patch that I’d push through. The first indications at Dauphiné were that this was the case. After three days, there was a stage that climbed the less famous northern side of Mont Ventoux. I was surprised to find myself only a few hundred metres behind the front few riders as we went over the summit.
Christophe Moreau and I were riding together and we attacked the descent like complete lunatics, catching up with the front group well before we got to the bottom of the mountain. On the road to the finish, more riders came together, but I won the sprint for third on the stage, which made me a contender. The next day’s stage was a 50-kilometre flat time trial. It was assumed that I’d win and take the leader’s jersey.
Sure enough, I took the leader’s jersey, but I was beaten into second place by Jonathan Vaughters, an American rider. Jonathan was only a couple of seconds in front of me, while the eventual GC winner Christophe Moreau was in fourth place, almost a minute further behind. I was so tired on finishing that I wanted to go to sleep (in hindsight, not a good sign), but my result on the Ventoux and in the time trial had made me the man to beat for the general classification. It appeared I was coming of age.
Just 24 hours later, those illusions were shattered. Drained and completely empty, I was one of the first to drop behind on the day’s final climb. It was humiliating, as I had almost the entire Cofidis team riding on the front of the peloton, yet I could not even stay with the bunch.
I tried to act unbothered as the race convoy passed me, although I didn’t really understand what was going on. A few kilometres further, I was immensely relieved to see a similarly wrecked Jonathan Vaughters crawling up the road ahead of me. Obviously we’d gone a little deeper than most in the previous day’s time trial and failed to recover.
Two days later, unable to continue and totally exhausted, I quit the race. Yet instead of being rested in an attempt to recover for the looming Tour de France, it was decided that it would be better if I kept racing. So, five days later, I was sent to the Route du Sud. I didn’t finish, getting unceremoniously dropped on the final mountain stage in what was my fifty-eighth day of racing since February.
I was wrecked and needed total rest, but I knew I stood little chance of recovering for the Tour. All I could do was rest up and gamble that I’d freshen up enough to come good for the Tour prologue.
The Tour’s Grand Départ was in Dunkirk, home ground for Cofidis, as their company headquarters was in nearby Lille. All the expectations were of me repeating my success of the previous year. Deep down, I knew I just didn’t have the condition. I was nervous and lacking confidence and I hadn’t felt good in training for weeks. I couldn’t have been further from the mental state I’d been in a year before. I wasn’t ready, and yet I was pretending to everybody I was.
Shari had arrived from Australia and, in an attempt to keep me calmer and more relaxed, she came up to Lille with me. This backfired as I became even more stressed, thinking I had to look after her. I was resentful for not having been more assertive and doing what I wanted to do, which was to rest and not go to the Route du Sud.
But it was the same old scenario – I was blaming the team for not having seen what was happening and telling me to rest and relax. This had become a vicious circle, as I’d then blame myself for being so easily manipulated by the team’s needs. Behind my confident façade, I was in turmoil, feeling angry, scared and desperate.
I did everything right for the Tour’s prologue. I recce’d the course more than anybody else, visualised and strategised my race, and made sure everything was perfect with my equipment. I was going to lose time on the fast sections, as my lack of top form simply wouldn’t allow me to develop the power I needed to go at the necessary speed. It wasn’t a very physically demanding course, and this meant my good aerodynamics and bike handling would compensate for what I lacked physically. But I had only one choice if I wanted to win: I had to take risks in the corners.
It was the first time Harry had ever sat in the team car and followed me in a time trial. I didn’t tell him beforehand what my tactic was – although I had discussed it with the team’s directeurs –so when I was literally touching barriers and clipping kerbs, he began to regret his decision to follow. It was quite clear that I was on the ragged edge. Sure eno
ugh, on the last corner, I came crashing down at speed.
My whole left side was ripped to pieces, with deep cuts and grazes, bruising and muscle damage. I got up to finish, and immediately after I wheeled across the line I was fairly upbeat about what had happened – after all, I’d known what the risks were. But I hadn’t thought about the consequences.
Falling off in a time trial is often bad. They are high-speed crashes and, more often than not, cause much more damage than a crash in the peloton, where there is a little bit of warning, braking time and some cushioning. But I’d never fallen off in a time trial before and the next ten days were to prove what a dire mistake I’d made.
With so much damage to one side, sleeping was nigh on impossible without sleeping pills. It was not a good way to begin the Tour de France, especially considering I was already in a state of fatigue. Now I was starting the Tour’s road stages hoping only to survive. I no longer had to live with expectations or pressure.
The team, oblivious to my physical and mental state, told the media that I’d probably take a few days to recover from my injuries then I’d be able to fight for a stage win in the second half of the race. Meanwhile, the realisation of what I’d got myself into was hitting home. I was starting the hardest bike race in the world tired and injured. I knew the team would not send me home or tell me, ‘Do your best and don’t worry.’ Yet that was all I wanted to hear.
As the days went by, my condition got worse. By the fifth stage, I was the ‘lanterne rouge’, or last man in the classification, almost an hour behind the yellow jersey. By the end of the first week it was quite clear that I wasn’t getting better, although the team still chose to ignore this. I had never suffered so much in a race and all I wanted was for it to be over. Yet the team kept telling me to hang on and that eventually I’d come good.
Funnily enough, if they’d just used a little reverse psychology on me I’d have been much better, because I felt as if none of them understood what I was going through.
If I’d been told: ‘David, we know how much you’re suffering, so if you want to stop then we will completely support you.’ If they had said that, then I might have found a renewed desire to fight on.
The reality was that that wasn’t going to happen, because if I went home the team stood little chance of winning a stage. The Tour had evolved into a complete disaster for Cofidis, the only ray of light being Andrei Kivilev’s high placing in the overall classification.
As the race arrived in the Alps, it was clear that I was going to be in for a tough time. Bondue and another manager came and saw me after another torrid day and we discussed how I was doing and also what awaited me. Bondue knew that Shari was in Biarritz, and he asked if I’d like the team to fly her in so she’d be waiting in the Alps.
At the time, this was unheard of behaviour from a pro team, as wives and girlfriends were still not really welcome. I thanked Alain and called Shari to ask if she’d like to come to the race. But she didn’t want to, reasoning that she didn’t want to watch me suffer as she’d already lived through the previous nine days with me. She was amazed I hadn’t already been sent home, and I don’t think she felt like being used as a pawn by the team. In a way, I understood, but I was still disappointed and her decision to stay away weakened my resistance to quitting.
The next day’s stage was from Aix-les-Bains to Alpe d’Huez. I started knowing I wasn’t going to be able to finish. It was simply beyond me, and any fight I had left was gone. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Tour any more. I’d grown to hate the suffering and the humiliation of always finishing so far behind the front of the race. Worst of all, I’d given up on my team sending me home or telling me they understood.
I’d let the team down, and, although there was a part of me that thought they should have been more caring, I also finally accepted I was a professional. It was my job to race; they weren’t my family, they weren’t my friends. They didn’t worry about me – I was paid to do a job. It was my responsibility to fulfil that expectation and to get results.
A few kilometres from the foot of the Col de Madeleine, I said my goodbyes. I battled my way to the front so at least I’d actually be starting the climb at the head of the peloton and not be seen to be throwing the towel in so obviously. I searched out Lance.
I spotted him and rode up alongside.
‘Lance – I’m out,’ I told him. ‘I can’t do this any more.’
‘Shit, Dave,’ he said. Then he looked at me. ‘You should have gone days ago though. You all right . . .?’
‘Yeah, just fucking over it. Good luck for today.’
‘Don’t need luck, Dave! It’s a pity you’re not going to see it – I’m gonna destroy it.’ He looked across and smiled. There wasn’t even the tiniest hint of doubt or arrogance in what he said: it was merely a statement of fact.
And he did destroy it – bluffing that he was struggling all the way to the bottom of the Alpe, before unleashing a shockingly vicious acceleration that left his closest rival Jan Ullrich stunned. It was classic Lance.
Meanwhile, far behind, I found myself alone on the Madeleine, a horrible 25-kilometre climb. That’s a long way on your own, as last man on the road in the Tour de France. I had a whole flotilla following me – team car, police escort, voiture balai, recovery truck, photographer, TV motorbike, and commissaire. It was a death march and they were the hovering vultures. I made it over the summit and then pulled over at the side of the road, a few kilometres into the descent.
The flotilla pulled over with me, and the TV cameras and photographers got the images they were waiting for – a broken and distressed team leader having his race number removed before shamefully climbing into the voiture balai. It was about the most soul-destroying experience a cyclist can have. This was the Tour, the race you’re not supposed to give up.
I didn’t have to spend too long in the voiture balai. Jacky Dubois, one of our soigneurs, was waiting at the roadside in a team car to pick me up and take me back to the hotel in a slightly more dignified manner. But our hotel was at the finish on the Alpe and we had to drive up the mountain behind the race.
At times, we were going so slowly through the crowds that people knocked on the window and called my name.
‘Putain, c’est Millar . . .? Il a abandonné . . .?!’
‘Shit, it’s Millar . . .? He’s given up . . .?!’
After a while I just slid down into my seat and pretended to be asleep. Ahead of us, Lance obliterated the race, just as he had promised.
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. I went to my room, turned on my phone and started calling the people that mattered. My family and friends were all pleased it was over as I had genuinely started to lose the plot in the previous days. While it was a massive relief, there was now also a gaping hole in my confidence. Everything I’d previously achieved meant nothing; all I was now was a pro rider who couldn’t finish the Tour de France.
The Alpe is pretty quiet on the evening after a Tour stage. The sun eventually drops behind the peaks and there’s a chill in the air. The thousands camped out on the mountainside head down the descent, the brake lights of camper vans and people carriers illuminating the twilight. All that’s left is the race convoy, the clearing-up process and some out-of-season hotels filled with weary cyclists.
Later that evening, the manager who’d been with Bondue after my torrid day in the Alps – I’ll call him ‘le Boss’ – came to my room and asked if I’d like to talk. I was sharing with another rider, so we left to find somewhere quieter. We ended up in l’Équipier’s room. It was good to see him. He gave me a big hug and I collapsed wearily onto the spare bed. It was just le Boss, l’Équipier and me.
‘Are you okay?’ le Boss asked me.
‘I’m disappointed,’ I said, ‘but I just couldn’t do it any more. There’s no way I’d be winning any stages in the final week. As soon as we starte
d climbing the Madeleine I knew it was over. The last ten days have been so fucking hard – too hard.’
‘The most important thing now is that you recover. Go home, see Shari, relax and allow yourself to get better,’ he said.
L’Équipier backed him up.
‘David, there’s still a lot of racing left in the season, you’ll be fine, don’t be too disappointed. You’re talented – you just have to find yourself another goal now. That’s why we’ve been talking about the Vuelta.’
I was interested in the prospect of racing in the Spanish national tour. ‘That would be perfect,’ I said. ‘I just need some rest now – I’ve been tired since May. I’m sure if I rest I’ll come back stronger than ever.’
‘Well, we weren’t too sure about theVuelta, but the race organiser will take us if you go,’ le Boss added. ‘They seem very keen on having you lead the team there.’
I perked up. ‘Really? There’s a prologue there, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, there is. In fact it’s a time trial.’
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘Thirteen kilometres, I think. That’s right, isn’t it?’
He turned to l’Équipier, who nodded: ‘Yeah, better for David than a prologue.’
‘That’s perfect. So what races would I do in August? I’ll need a stage race. That’s the only way I can get good enough.’
‘Well, we’ve had a look,’ the manager continued, ‘and think maybe Tour of the Wallonne Region and the Tour of Denmark. So you’d then have about three weeks till the Vuelta.’
‘That’s quite a long time,’ I said. ‘Are there no more races?’
‘We thought you could go to Italy, stay with . . .’ he turned and gestured to l’Équipier. ‘Stay at his place there. Get out of Biarritz in August.’ There was a pause. ‘That would allow you to . . . prepare properly.’