The quotes from interview seem to be in the public domain, and you can find them in articles on Sportinglife.com, Road.cc and Velonation, and in French on velochrono.fr- so I don’t have too many qualms about reposting them here.
David Millar has been the only Scot riding the Tour for some time. Yesterday he had a jour sans, but struggled through one the hardest stage of the 2010 Tour so far alone, to finish just inside the time limit.
“Today represents a brand new entry into my top five worst-ever days on a bike, I spent 180 kilometres by myself convinced I was going to abandon or be eliminated.”
He has loyal fans and vehement detractors in equal measure, and interestingly his ride yesterday was seen as either a heroic struggle or with schadenfreude, depending on which side of the fence you come down on.
“I crashed three times on Stage 2, and the third time I flipped over the handlebars and knew I’d really hurt myself. Ever since I’ve been battling injuries from that crash, plus a fever and stomach bug, and just basically hanging on for dear life. I started today motivated, but knew immediately something wasn’t right. My left side where I’d crashed just locked up and then my back started having spasms.”
“I spent about three hours packing in my head, at 100 kilometres to go I was 30 minutes down on the leaders. All I could see in my head were the contours of the stage from the maps. I broke it up into five-kilometre climbs and kept thinking – I have to get through this.”
“The fans on the side of the road were brilliant, they were cheering and telling me not to give up, and that made a huge difference for me. By the time I got to the finish, I didn’t know if I’d made the time cut – all I knew was that I’d finished.
Millar said: “And at the Tour, it’s about finishing. This is not a race you want to leave, or one you’ll give up on without turning yourself inside out.” One of the things I love about cycling is that a last placed finisher can be celebrated like this. The effort and struggle required to complete a ride when you are having a bad day is an achievement in itself, and something all cyclists can relate to.
This leaves him 147th on GC at 1:32.33. It’s meaningless statistic- that he’s still in the race is all that matters, If he survives the Pyrenees, he will be able to lead out Tyler Farrar (or perhaps Mark Cavendish) in the later sprint stages, and go for the win in the Bordeaux time trial.
