David Millar of Garmin-Chipotle chats with the Associated Press about the rift between the UCI and ASO, and more …  
By JEROME PUGMIRE
AP Sports Writer

PARIS (AP) - British rider David Millar said the rift between cycling’s leadership and race organizers is leaving riders isolated and vulnerable in a sport already burdened by doping scandals.

But Millar, who was banned from cycling for two years in 2004 after admitting to using EPO earlier in his career, also said a “cultural shift” is under way that could finally end the cheating.

Millar rode at this year’s Tour de France, where four riders tested positive for doping amid increasingly rigorous testing.

Months before the July 5-27 race had even started, cycling’s governing body had fallen out with Tour owners ASO in a feud that saw the International Cycling Union sidelined from the sport’s showpiece event.

“Cycling is an easy target in that there is very little solidarity across the board. The prime example is the UCI-ASO farce,” Millar told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “That is cycling in a nutshell. At the moment we are easy targets because we are unable to defend ourselves as a whole.”

Because of this fractured leadership, Millar said riders have to fend for themselves, adding that football, golf and tennis typically show more unity.

“In cycling, if you upset one person, you have made quite a lot of friends,” Millar said. “It’s very back-stabbing, very two-faced.”

At this year’s Tour, won by Carlos Sastre, the French Anti-Doping Agency handled the testing. Riccardo Ricco of Italy, Manuel Beltran of Spain and Moises Duenas Nevado of Spain all tested positive for EPO, and Dmitriy Fofonov tested positive for a banned stimulant.

Millar’s Garmin Chipotle team has a strong internal anti-doping policy.

“What has happened of late is forcing people to understand what needs to be done. If they don’t do it, they won’t survive,” he said.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said he hopes this year’s Tour is remembered as “when the balance shifted the other way” in the fight against doping. Millar also thinks that a cultural change is under way in the sport.

“We had a doping culture” in the past that encouraged an “omerta,” or code of silence, Millar said. “In years to come, the cultural shift will allow that there is nothing” for cyclists to hide.

The previous two Tours were rocked by doping scandals.

Astana rider Alexandre Vinokourov was kicked out last year for a blood transfusion and his team quit the race. Cofidis also left after Cristian Moreni was caught using testosterone.

Iban Mayo, who rode for the Saunier Duval team, tested positive for EPO. Tour leader Michael Rasmussen was fired by his Rabobank team just days from the end for lying about his whereabouts when missing pre-Tour doping tests.
Prudhomme’s decision not to invite Astana for this year’s race meant defending champion Alberto Contador stayed home.

Two years ago, Floyd Landis won the Tour but was later stripped of the title for using synthetic testosterone.

“This is the first year where it is very hard to get away with it. There was not an anti-doping culture before,” Millar said. “All there was was an ethical thing, right and wrong. … But if you want to do it wrong nobody is going to stop you. Even three years ago, you could get away with doping easily, (even) two years ago.”

Millar says authorities were too slack.

“If you can get away with it easy, you start to think, ‘They’re not really trying that hard, are they?’” Millar said. “‘If we can dope this easily - and everyone knows how to do it, and they (the authorities) still haven’t figured out how to stop us - then what the hell is going on?’”

Cycling has been berated since the Festina affair in 1998, when a large haul of doping products was found in a team car. The following year, the World Anti-Doping Agency was founded, and in 2004, WADA’s code was implemented by sports organizations - standardizing the rules and regulations governing anti-doping across sports and all countries.

Doping controls in cycling have improved in the past two years, coinciding with biological passport profiles. The UCI has steered a project in which more than 850 riders have given a series of blood and urine samples to set the parameters for an individual biological profile.

An online system tracks riders at any time so they can be subjected to out-of-competition testing.

“What everybody really forgets is that the anti-doping world is so young. WADA has only existed nine years, and the online whereabouts system was only put online this year,” Millar said.

The four doping cases at this year’s Tour showed that cheaters are getting caught, but also that they are not deterred. Still, Millar thinks other sports may eventually look at cycling as a way to tackle doping.

“I think what’s going to happen is that in five or six years’ time, we’re literally going to be at the vanguard of anti-doping,” Millar said. “They will take cycling as an example of what to do.”

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