David Millar Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I sat there with everything - and I had nothing.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I'd just killed some of the best riders in the world - and I was clean. I'd taken nothing - no EPO, no cortisone, no testosterone, no painkillers, no caffeine. I had justified to myself that I was a great rider without drugs - yet perversely given myself the green light to dope again. I'd proved what I could do clean - how much more could I do if I was doped?

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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