
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar (Paperback)
David Millar (author)Published: 28/06/2012
The SUNDAY TIMES bestselling memoir from the Tour de France cyclist who lifts the lid on his drug use and return to sport.
By his eighteenth birthday David Millar was living and racing in France, sleeping in rented rooms, tipped to be the next English-speaking Tour winner. A year later he'd realised the dream and signed a professional contract. He perhaps lived the high life a little too enthusiastically - he broke his heel in a fall from a roof after too much drink, and before long the pressure to succeed had tipped over into doping. Here, in a full and frank autobiography, David Millar recounts the story from the inside: he doped because 'cycling's drug culture was like white noise', and because of peer pressure. 'I doped for money and glory in order to guarantee the continuation of my status.' Five years on from his arrest, Millar is clean and reflective, and holds nothing back in this account of his dark years.
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 9781409120384
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 300 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 28 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
His description of that agonising 2010 mountain stage, during which he scoured the depths of his soul while falling helplessly behind the rest of the field, deserves to stand among the great first-person accounts of sporting experience. -- Richard Williams * THE GUARDIAN *
His career almost destroyed by a doping scandal in 2004, the cycling champion faces his demons in this eloquent and revelatory memoir. Millar's gutsy slog to restore his reputation is inspirational. * THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SEVEN Magazine *
This is the superbly narrated story of one man's evolution from talented ingenue to disillusioned doper and back again... one of the very best snapshots of professional cycling in the noughties. * OUTDOOR FITNESS *
Highly articulate, Millar has written a courageously combative book that both exposes the conditions that create drug cheating and explains how his sport has to confront those conditions if it is to break from this most murky of pasts. -- Mark Perryman * PHILOSOPHY FOOTBALL *
The thoughtful British doper-turned-campaigner delivers an eloquent, highly rated memoir about life in troubled peloton. -- Simon Usborne * THE INDEPENDENT *
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“Refreshing read”
I have a pretty large collection of books about cycling, biographies, autobiographies, training manuals, maintenance manuals. I tend to buy them as on the outset they look really good but many of them after a few... More
“Spectacular”
From his youth through to the doping scandals which surrounded pro cycling team Cofidis in 2004 and beyond to his '07 successful comeback latterly with Garmin, Millar creates a brilliant account of life in the... More
“Really good book, a must read for all cycling fans”
Millar was one of the last British cyclists to go through the older system of being an amateur, before turning pro and being a domestique and main rider for the European teams. He is an immensely talented rider, and... More
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