MILLAR SHOCKED BY VINO POSITIVE

• Tuesday, 24 July 2007
• By Stephen Farrand in Pau
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David Millar was speaking in a Saunier Duval press conference when the news that Alexandre Vinokourov had tested positive for blood doping broke.

Millar was visibly in shock and left the press room in tears after speaking out against doping to the press.

“Jesus Christ!” was Millar's initial reaction.

“It makes me very sad because Vino is, and I’ll still use the present tense, one of my favourite riders and one of the most beautiful riders in the peloton. This is f...ing trouble. If a guy of his class has done that then we may as well pack our bags and go home.”

When asked if the Tour should continue, Millar said yes and bravely stayed in the press centre and answered questions in English and French.

“We should go on. If we stop, I’d have to retire tomorrow. I had an announcement to make and have a project for the future, to build a team that is making a difference.”

“We’ve got to have a constructive conclusion to all this stuff, we’ve got to find a solution. I try my best not to critic the UCI. But, I am going to critic the UCI today, and say that they have to pull their finger out and get their controlling system properly sorted out. When it comes down to it that is their only responsibility, to control the riders, and put an operational whereabouts system in place so that the riders can actually believe in it."

"We can't throw out all the old garbage; we have to keep some of it, the intelligent ones. Trying to erase the past, like erasing victories, riders doesn’t work. We need to keep some of the poachers to turn them into game keepers. Some of them, not all of them. There have to be some that are willing to put their hands up and try to help."

“Unfortunately as soon as it goes well everyone just forgets about the past but we can't do that. Tommy Simpson died forty years ago and we are still here. That guy died of doping forty years ago and we did not even have a minute of silence to remember that guy on the start line. It is just a sorry state."

Millar tried to find comfort in the fact that Vino was caught.

"It is a good thing that he as been caught but the fact that it actually happened is just tragedy," he concluded.