It is not a big secret that David Millar will hang up the wheels with the end of this season, following his mostly vivid sixteen years spent in the professional peloton. However, the 37-year old Briton doesn’t intend to quietly back away, as he aims to leave his final marks at the Tour de France and Commonwealth games.
Millar was so far anonymous is all of his 2014 outings, but Garmin-Sharp road captain insists that his recent results are insignificant as long as he is able to line up at his final Tour de France at the top disposition.
“For sure, 100 per cent, I still have something inside me,” he told Cyclingnews on the first day of the Criterium du Dauphine in Lyon.
“That’s what has been in the back of my mind all year. It doesn’t really matter what you do for the year but if you do well at the Tour then you’ve had a good season. The Tour is the race that has meant the most to me during my whole career so I’d like to guarantee that I can be good there and that meant being on the backburner at the start of the year.”
While the 37-year old Briton insists that his broad experience enables him to time his disposition perfectly for the French grand tour, he admitted that Criterium du Dauphine would be a first real test of his form in the 2014 season.
“My form is a lot better than it has been. I don’t think my time trial performance is very representative of my overall form but it’s coming up all the time,” he said after crossing the line in 74th place.
“But my head is so fixed on the Tour and the Commonwealth Games and hopefully the Vuelta as well. I had a job to do in the Classics which was road captain, and that meant that although I was doing a lot of work you didn’t really see many results for it. Up to now I’ve been working for the team in the background so come the Tour I should get my opportunity one day.”
“I’m here to get through the race fit and healthy. To help Andrew Talansky, help Ryder Hesjedal who should also be able to do a good ride here and once again be a road captain.”
As a close fried and former team mate of Bradley Wiggins at Garmin-Sharp, Millar also commented on the currently hottest topic in the professional cycling, somewhat backing Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford in his decision not to include the 2012 champion in the Tour de France roster.
“Dave Brailsford as we’ve seen, always makes rational decisions. It’s very brave one from him, that’s for sure. But at the same time all they're interested in is winning the Tour. So I guess they think their best chance might be without Bradley there. I don’t think they’ll have taken the decision lightly and although it goes against what a lot of the British public, the media and the sponsors would like, the bottom line is that they want to win the Tour,” Millar told Cyclingnews.
“We all know that Brad has a special personality and evidently Chris must do as well. If you want to win the Tour de France you have to be a bit of a special dude. I think Brailsford understands that you can only have one special dude in each team and they’ve chosen the one that gives them the most chance of winning.”
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