by David Millar
Initially, I was a little angry that he suggested I get out of Biarritz, as if I couldn’t be trusted to behave. I wasn’t really in a position to fight though, as all I was interested in was getting back to my best. What was now going through my head was the phrase le Boss had used: ‘prepare properly’.
I knew what that meant.
I looked across at l’Équipier.
‘It will be perfect for you, David,’ he said. ‘You’ll be part of the family – beautiful home-cooked Italian food, local dishes, amazing training, and there’s a guest room so you’ll have your privacy. We’ll make sure you start the Vuelta in the best possible condition. Nobody will be able to beat you in Spain.’
‘So I wouldn’t race after Denmark?’ I asked.
I thought the response to this would be a clear indication of what was going on, because normally the team would want me racing as much as possible before a major objective. But if I was going to be doping – taking EPO – then that would mean not racing in order to avoid anti-doping controls.
‘No,’ le Boss said. ‘You’d finish your racing in Denmark, then the two of you would recover and train. You won’t need to race, it’s better you arrive fresh.’
It was clear to me that I had understood the meaning of ‘prepare properly ’.
As I took it all in, something shifted in me. I was being asked to go to Italy to take EPO. I would then go and win the Vuelta prologue, thus redeeming the team with the sponsor. It boiled down to professionalism.
I was weary – too weary to fight any more. All that resistance – all the fighting I’d been doing, all the idealism that at first came so naturally and had slowly grown into a futile and isolating stance – was now behind me.
I had done well – bloody well – as a clean rider. I had stood my ground, done my bit, but now it was out of my hands. The team needed me to accept my obligations, and now it all made sense. The tired young dreamer had been waiting for this moment. The background white noise of the struggle to fight doping finally subsided. I opened my mind and let it in.
I walked into that hotel room an anti-doper; I walked out of it a seasoned professional ready to do what was required of me. There was no torment or confusion in my mind. I now knew that in a few weeks I would be doping for the first time. It felt as if a massive burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I was now a professional through and through with bigger responsibilities than my own personal belief system.
I headed back to Biarritz. Shari, my sister and some other friends were there. They’d been planning on following me through the Pyrenees, but instead we just hung out and I tried to fix myself.
My body was a wreck. I had bronchitis, an upset stomach and some of my injuries from the crash in Dunkirk had still not healed. I spent ten days off the bike and didn’t watch the Tour once. Nor did I tell anybody about the decision I’d made. There was never any question of sharing it.
13
2001: AN ODYSSEY BEGINS
My last race ‘clean’ before I left for Tuscany was the Tour of Denmark. I won the time trial and the general classification. On the last night, I toasted my success with runner-up Jaan Kirsipuu, an Estonian rouleur who taught me the merits of vodka. One of the last things I remember is standing at a bar with a range of vodkas lined up, as Jaan explained their differing characteristics in loving detail. They didn’t come much more hardcore than Jaan Kirsipuu.
And then, there I was, with l’Équipier, in Tuscany. It was ridiculous really: I had just won a major race, despite not being in top form, yet I was going to dope. After winning Denmark, it would have been reasonable for me to think that I didn’t have to go to Italy, that if I worked hard and put my head down and believed in myself, I could win the Vuelta prologue – clean.
Perhaps if I’d had people – somebody – around me who I could have talked to about it, then that might have been the conclusion I’d have come to and I’d have cancelled the trip to Tuscany. But back then, that person simply didn’t exist for me.
I had long realised that there was nobody I could speak to about the world I was living in. Since that first encounter of doping at the Etoile des Besseges, when Jim van der Laer had found himself in a corner, I had to accept that pro cycling had a dark and secret world. I had no choice but to adapt to it – or leave.
Mum had put it perfectly when she said: ‘You can come home whenever you like.’ That was true but I was never going to walk away, even with the shit that was going on around me. I was too in love with the sport. Cycling was still amazing to me and racing as a pro was still my dream. I thought it would be pathetic to throw the dream away, simply because I knew that others were doping.
There was a harsher truth. I knew that any life I had outside of cycling wasn’t going to be as good as the life I had carved out within the sport. I had been lucky enough to discover something I excelled in and loved, and to be paid well for it. So few people get that opportunity in life.
I had believed that I could exist in a morally corrupt world as long as I was strong enough to stand my ground and respect my value system. I thought that position would win me respect. I also thought that things inside the sport would eventually change and that I’d never actually have to confront the lure of doping. But change failed to come and, little by little, my idealism soured, my resistance faltered and I grew cynical and resentful.
The decision to dope didn’t happen in the time it took me to walk in and out of l’Équipier’s room at Alpe d’Huez: it happened over several years. I had been at my tipping point for longer than I knew. When I got to the hotel that night after quitting the Tour I had reached the endgame – it seemed as if there was no longer any choice.
My responsibilities as team leader contributed because I felt that the team’s existence and continuation depended on my performances. I had a loyalty to Cofidis that in many ways was misplaced, but was also totally necessary for me to operate. The manager and l’Équipier knew that; they understood my sense of obligation. They chose the perfect time to nudge me gently and ease me to the other side.
Circumstances may have driven me to it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t fully in control of my destiny. I had made a decision in that room at the Alpe and it had not crossed my mind to go back on it. It was now professional obligation rather than youthful idealism that dictated my choices. Finally I’d accepted that it was easier to dope than not to dope.
L’Équipier lived in a beautiful old house – it was the archetypal Tuscan villa, on the top of a little hill, in the middle of nowhere, beautiful, and so serene. His wife and children couldn’t have been more welcoming and hospitable. They made me feel very much at home.
It was such a happy place, the most incongruous environment to be doping for the first time. This was not some dark, dirty changing room or seedy doctor’s office, but a family home filled with laughter, bathed in Tuscan sunshine. I suppose that made it all seem so much easier.
After I’d settled in, l’Équipier and I went out for a short spin on the bike. I broached the subject for the first time.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t really know much about EPO. How much am I going to have to do?’
‘As it’s your first time,’ he explained, ‘not so much, because your body will respond to it very easily. Probably I’d say about 10,000 units over a week. That’s nothing really – shit, some guys need to take 4000 units every day for ten days in order to get an increase. That’s not good. I’ve seen a lot of guys end up like that.’
‘I don’t intend to end up like that,’ I said.
‘Me neither, I’ve always managed to be careful and limit the use. It’s the only way.’
‘So – I guess you have some?’ I asked.
‘Of course! But we may need to get some more before the end of the week. That’s no problem though, I know some people.’
I was worried though. ‘How long do I stop before the start of the Vuelta? I don’t want any risks.’
‘David, don’t worry. We are going
to be working on a zero risk policy! You’re stopping ten days before the Vuelta. That’s the latest . . .’
‘So when do I start?’
‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it in the evening, it’s better.’
I was curious. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘we just do it in the evening.’
And that was that. There wasn’t really much else for me to ask. I knew about EPO from everything that had been said or written in the post-Festina years. The grey area in my head was dosage and cut-off time, but l’Équipier seemed to know what he was doing. I honestly believed he wouldn’t do anything that would harm me.
That evening we had a wonderful meal prepared by his wife. Once dinner was over, she took the children up to bed, leaving l’Équipier and myself alone at the table. He stood up, went to the fridge, and took out what looked to be a normal can of Coca-Cola, but with a screw lid.
Inside were some small syringes, smaller than I’d seen before. They were different colours and were branded with the EPO manufacturer’s logo. All the syringes were the same size but contained different quantities. This was the first time I’d actually seen EPO.
I took a closer look. ‘No shit – it actually says “EPO” on the syringe . . .?’
L’Équipier sat down again.
‘There are different manufacturers,’ he said, ‘and you’re best getting the brand name syringes, because that way you know exactly what you’re getting. It’s also possible to get it in a separate ampoule – then you have to get diabetes syringes separately and measure out each dose. This is better because the quantities are clearly indicated on the syringe.’
‘Where do you get it from?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s pretty easy,’ he said, ‘either the pharmacy or I have a friend at a hospital. It’s much harder than it used to be though. There was a pharmacy here that used to make most of its money from professional cyclists! The laws are much tougher now, so they don’t risk it. Luckily, I know some people.’ He gave that big grin.
I was so accustomed to syringes by now that the sight of them didn’t perturb me in any way. I’d been injected scores of times, mostly intravenously, which I was accustomed to and could quite easily do myself. I hated intramuscular injections – considered the best way to take iron. I’d tried a few times but ended up chasing my arse around with the needle, until finally giving up and getting somebody else to do it for me. I knew that EPO was injected subcutaneously, but I’d never had one of these injections.
‘Where do you inject?’ I asked him.
L’Équipier was completely at ease. ‘Anywhere really, but the top of your arm is best. Roll up your T-shirt.’
He pinched my arm, pushed the needle through and under the skin and carefully pushed the EPO out of the syringe. Then he pulled out the syringe quickly and smoothly, while rubbing where he’d injected. There was a little bump where the liquid was sitting under the skin, and a prick mark like a mosquito bite. It was probably the easiest and most anti-climactic injection I’d ever had. It was less like the stereotypical idea of doping than the injectable récup I’d grown so used to.
L’Équipier then injected himself with the other syringe, replaced everything in the fake Coke can, screwed the lid on and put it back in the fridge. It had all been done in a couple of minutes. It was a tiny process for what was supposed to give such massive gains and for something that had tormented me for so long. If I hadn’t been so conditioned to syringes and injections I’m sure it would have made much more of an impact on me.
The consummation of doping was not the defining moment people might expect it to have been. I can remember vividly the first time I was injected with legal recovery products as a neo-pro, whereas my first doping experience I remember for no other reason than I consciously told myself I should. It was so relaxed. I might as well have been handed a cup of tea, there was so little emotion involved.
We slipped into a rhythm in Tuscany. We’d wake up, have breakfast with the family then head out on the bikes. We didn’t have a training schedule, as such. We’d simply head out and do between 3 and 4 hours. The longest ride we did while I was there was four and a half hours.
L’Équipier was of the laissez-faire school and there was little real science to our training. We’d ride hard on some climbs, easier on others. He said the most important thing was to keep our bodies ticking over and remind them occasionally that we were racers, which would be when we’d go hard on the climbs. The most important thing was to allow our bodies to adapt and use the EPO. This meant doing the standard combination of injectable recovery, which fuelled the EPO dose with the necessary ingredients to make more red blood cells.
But the impression that I wasn’t really doing anything wrong was shattered the day we had to go and get some more EPO. This involved us going for a drive and making two stops in far less idyllic surroundings than my teammate’s household. I drove us to a cash point before we pulled over and parked outside an apartment block.
L’Équipier told me to wait and then disappeared for 10 minutes with the cash before reappearing with a small plastic bag. My unease increased when we went to a hospital and another guy came out to the car park and met l’Équipier with a package. Evidently, the first contact hadn’t been able to supply enough, so we had to use two sources. The perceived innocence of the Tuscan villa and the happy family slipped away.
We did blood tests the day after I arrived and the day I left. Even in that short time, there was an increase of a couple of percentage points in my hematocrit. L’Équipier was very thankful he’d erred on the side of caution with my dosage, as he said I was reacting amazingly well to the EPO.
He was used to seasoned dopers and had forgotten just how big the effect could be on a first-timer like me. But I was becoming nervous that, once I started racing, it would be very noticeable that I’d taken EPO. My last injection was twelve days before the start of the Vuelta, so we’d be able to monitor my levels, but there was now very little to be done to stop the EPO stimulating growth in my red blood cells.
I was in an odd place, aware that change was happening, but not experiencing any significant physical benefits. Back in Biarritz, I trained for a few days on roads I knew well, but I was no superman. I was beginning to wonder what the big deal was. I’d expected there to be an instant effect, that I’d be powering up climbs in much higher gears. But it wasn’t like that. I started to think it had all been a waste of time, that maybe there had been no point in doing it. I left for the 2001 Vuelta more nervous than ever.
14
LA VIDA DOPADA
I was scared shitless before the start of the 2001 Vuelta a España.
I was worried not only that my blood levels were going to be too high and that it would become common knowledge that I’d taken EPO, but, more importantly, that I was going to lose.
We arrived in Salamanca in Spain three days before the race. I spent most of the time, day and night, sleeping. L’Équipier was the opposite. He was nervous too and far from sleepy. I suppose we had our different ways of handling the stress.
As usual, the team ran their pre-Grand Tour blood test on the Thursday morning. L’Équipier and I anxiously awaited the results. Thankfully our levels weren’t as high as we thought they might have been. I was only a couple of points higher than usual, a result that could easily be explained by simply being rested and fresh. It didn’t look suspicious. I was able to relax a bit more.
Although the three Grand Tours of France, Italy and Spain have similar formats, they have their own distinct characteristics and the Vuelta is very different from the Tour.
The Tour is a well-oiled machine. Wherever it goes, it takes over; villages, towns and cities have to adapt to the Tour’s requirements. At the Vuelta, there is little to suggest the race is coming until a couple of hours beforehand, and normal life continues until the last possible moment. The two races typified their cultures: the Tour is a flagship of the République Française and f
or that reason allpowerful and somewhat arrogant, while the Vuelta is more relaxed and takes itself less seriously. As riders, we were tiny cogs in the Tour machine, whereas at the Vuelta we were integral parts of the race festivities and could enjoy it as such.
Because of this relaxed attitude, it was hard to scout the time trial course before the race began in Salamanca. Nobody even knew where it was. There were no route arrows, barriers or even a clear map indicating the route. So I just slept.
When I did finally see it, my worst fears came true. I had become a nervous bike handler since the crash in the Tour and this course was very fast and technical for the first few kilometres. My cornering had been laughable in the two time trials I’d ridden since Dunkirk, in Belgium and Denmark.
The last few kilometres of the course were hard, so I decided that was where I could make the difference. I had to keep calm through the first time check, as I was sure to have lost time, then make up the lost seconds in the finale.
As predicted, I lost time in the opening kilometres, but then rode out of my skin all the way to the finish line, beating the fastest time by just one second. In contrast to my Tour win the previous year, all I felt was relief – unadulterated pure relief. I’d fulfilled my professional obligations – I couldn’t have imagined doping and not winning. But it was all business now. It didn’t feel like sport any more. Winning this way had never been part of my dream.
I lost the race leader’s jersey three days later in a crash in the final 10 kilometres of the stage. I bruised my lower leg quite badly and one of the soigneurs covered it in an anti-inflammatory cream, without knowing the cream was photo-sensitive.
The next day was hot and sunny and the part of my leg that had been covered in the cream began to burn from the inside out. This then spread and was causing me ridiculous pain as it burned my skin off. That mistake has left me with an allergic reaction to direct sunlight every since.