CYCLING:ON THE 45th anniversary of the day Tom Simpson, the first British rider to wear the Tour de France leader's yellow jersey, expired on the baking slopes of the Mont Ventoux with a mixture of amphetamines and brandy in his bloodstream, David Millar sprinted to a victory that made him the fourth Briton to win a stage in the 2012 race, following successes for Mark Cavendish, Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins.
The 224km of road between Saint-Jean de Maurienne and Annonay Davezieux gave Millar his fifth Tour stage win, and his first individual victory since his return in 2006 from a two-year suspension imposed after he had admitted using EPO under interrogation by the French police.
Subsequently he has married, had a son, become a co-owner of the militantly anti-doping Garmin team, published a best selling autobiography, and turned himself into a tireless campaigner against the use of drugs in the sport.
The failure of the British Olympic Association to uphold its policy of lifelong bans for those convicted of doping offences enabled the selectors of the cycling team to name the 35-year-old Scot as Cavendish’s road captain for the race on July 28th, an invitation he accepted only after considerable reflection.
“I think Dave is one of the exceptions to the rule because of the things he’s said since he came back,” Bradley Wiggins said last night, having ensured that he will start today’s 13th stage in the yellow jersey for the sixth day in a row. “He’s been heavily pro-active in working with the British anti-doping people and he’s trying to help change the future of this sport.”
A couple of years ago Millar left his cap at the Simpson monument as he rode up the Ventoux. He had not been thinking of the dead man when he set out in the morning, but he welcomed the parallel with a rider whose memory is at once an inspiration and an awful warning.
“It’s poignant,” he said. “I’m an ex-doper, but I’m clean now and I’m very proud of that. I’ve won today as a clean rider, after making the same mistake that Tom made. I’ve shown where cycling has come in the last 45 years – even the last five years.”
Millar’s team lost three of their nine riders to a variety of misfortune in the early days of the race, making a solo effort the only serious option.
Knowing he was the best sprinter of the five riders who made a break from the peloton, he needed only to mark the occasional attack. Jean-Christophe Peraud jumped away from the group as they passed Annonay’s splendid monument to the ballooning Montgolfier brothers with 3km to go, but Millar had his number in the final burst.
For Wiggins, the only moment of danger came on the ascent of the Ardoix, when his arm was burnt by a flare. “There were guys running alongside and lighting flares,” he said. “I’m sure some of them will be nursing wounds, because there were quite a few bottles thrown from the peloton.”
While Wiggins cruised home almost eight minutes behind Millar, the sprint for sixth place was headed by Matthew Goss, followed across the line by an angry Peter Sagan, who felt he had been impeded. The commissaires agreed and reversed their positions. “Vaffanculo,” the Slovak had shouted at the Australian, using a popular Italian imprecation. Further evidence of the globalisation of cycling.
