Racing Through The Dark: Prologue

June 22, 2004, Biarritz

It is early morning.

I have  been dozing. I open my eyes.

For a moment, I don’t know where I am.

Then  I remember the  night  before, the  hands on  my shoulders, pushing me, shoving me, the rage  and the abuse, my heart racing, my palms  sweating.

And then, my guts in sudden free fall, I recognize where I am, the bare walls, the rough blanket, the hanging lightbulb.

I am in a French police  cell, below  Biarritz town hall, in an empty basement. A smell of piss and disinfectant hangs in the air. A drunken man shouts relentlessly in a cell somewhere down  the corridor.

It is six in the  morning. The  morning of a new  life. Only I don’t know what kind of life it will be. What do I feel? Relief, shame, terror, emptiness, loneliness.

And tired, I am so tired.

Outside, the  sun  is already up, warming the  rooftops. The dawn surfers will be  heading down to the  beach, the  patisserie near  my flat opening for business, the  nightclubs emptying. This place has been my home. They liked me  here. Not  anymore. Now they  will look the  other way. Now I don’t belong.

I don’t  belong here,  in France, where they  have  arrested me  and  where they  will shame me and  break  me, nor in Britain where they  will disown  me for  whom  I  have  become. Now  I  don’t  belong anywhere. Now  I  float,  cast adrift, out to sea, a speck in the distance.

Now I know it is finished.

There  are no good reasons, no easy  excuses. There  is no redemption. Instead, I am blinded now, dirty, unshaven, red-eyed; they took my phone, my belt, my shoelaces—just in case, they  said.

Just in case.

I bury my head in the hood  of my sweatshirt, understanding that I’ve lost everything I had once  dreamed of, but feeling nothing but acceptance. There is no sadness—simply the recognition that I have  been unhappy for a long time.

I close  my eyes,  pull the  hood  over  my head,  and  turn  toward the  wall. I want  darkness, but here the  lights  never  go  out. The opposite wall, the  one with the locked  door, is made of Perspex. Privacy is a thing  of the past.

I can’t sleep.

I can’t sleep  because I am guilty, and I am all the  more  awake  because of it. All I can do is think of ways to explain myself, to justify myself, but I know I can’t. It doesn’t stop me trying  for hours  and hours  on end.

I  lie there on  the  wooden bench, motionless, wondering when it’s all going  to start again, when will they come for me with more  questions. Four- teen hours in this cell, no food, no company.

There is a bang on the  door. Finally. A bolt  turns,  and  the  one  with the gun, the one who laughed at me, comes in.

“Bon. On y va.”

The walk upstairs to the interview room  is humiliating. I know some  of the policemen who work here.  They treated me as somebody special, asked for my autograph. I’m being looked at differently now. They are embarrassed for me. I can sense pity.

For twenty-four hours the questions continue, in and out of the interview room. The good cop, the man in charge, seems reasonable. He plays his role.

“David, I understand the  stresses you’re  under,”  he  says. “This is all the fault of Cofidis and  François Migraine. Not you. You know that? They’re the ones responsible for us being here—you must remember that.”

After a while he leaves. I am on my own with the  one  with the  sneer and the gun. And, in turn, he plays his role. He knows how to hurt me.

“I know  the  type  of person you  are, David. It’s disgusting that you trick people who admire and  respect you.” He moves across the  room, leans  in closer. “All you are is a cheat and liar.”

By the end  of the second day, I’ve barely slept for forty-eight hours.

I know I’m going  to lose everything, my career and my sport, the  house, the car, the prestige, the money, the lifestyle.

I do not care  if I lose everything, even though I thought that it was all that mattered. It is a relief. I am going to be free. It is an epiphany.

They take  me back to the interview room. I ask if I can  talk to the  other policeman, the third guy, the one who has never spoken to me.

He has remained in the  background, seemingly the  lowest ranked of this elite drugs squad. He enters the room.

“You must be tired,” he says, pouring me a glass  of water. “Yes,” I say. “I am.”

I look down  for a moment, studying my hands, tanned and  wiry from the hours spent gripping the handlebars, training and  racing  with  my  Cofidis teammates, for thousands upon thousands of kilometers.

I lift my head and look at him. He is watching me.

“You know, David, this  is not  going  to go  away,” he tells me. “We’re not going to stop.”

“I know,” I say.

Now, at last, I am ready.

“I want  to tell you first. I don’t  want  to give them—the others—the satisfaction.”

And so I begin.

 ♦◊♦

Let me tell you who I am.

My name is David Millar.

I am  a professional cyclist, an Olympic athlete, a Tour  de  France star, a world champion—and a drugs cheat.

And I want  to start again.

—–

RACING THROUGH THE DARK is a new book by champion cyclist DAVID MILLAR.  In 2004, Millar was caught for taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Unlike just about every other athlete similarly charged, Millar immediately came clean.  Doping may have boosted his results, but it had an extremely caustic effect on his soul. In RACING THROUGH THE DARK (Touchstone, on sale June 26), the memoir he wrote himself, Millar takes a hard, unflinching look at his journey through the world of professional cycling—from starting as a neo-pro determined never to cheat, to becoming a battered veteran who finally succumbed to the ubiquitous temptation of PEDs, to serving a two-year ban and returning to competition full of renewed optimism and a firm resolve not only not to cheat, but to create a team in which doping is not an option. This is a tale of idealism soured but also of a spirit re-engaged. Millar’s phoenix-like return to the sport he so clearly loves will leave you heartened, and cheering.

Unfortunately doping is still a very pressing issue. Recently, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency brought formal doping charges against former cyclist Lance Armstrong in an action that could cost him his seven Tour de France titles. RACING THROUGH THE DARK sheds light on the destructive culture of doping and offers Millar’s keen insight on how to turn the sport around.

Millar takes readers inside the peloton vividly describing both the beauty and the pain of cycling in riveting detail. RACING THROUGH THE DARK also transcends the sport, and speaks to the choices we make and the power that comes from owning up to mistakes—and refusing to be defined by them.

**The British Olympic Association recently announced that David Millar has been shortlisted for one of the five spots on the men’s road cycling team for the London Games.  As a result of his doping charge Millar was banned from the Olympics for life under BOA rules, but the bylaw was revoked last month after being rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. **