Wycombe rider considers cycling president role (From Bucks Free Press)

Millar would give UCI 'fresh approach'

11:27am Tuesday 16th October 2012 in Local Sport By Alan Feldberg

WYCOMBE Cycling Club honourary member David Millar is considering going for the top job in the sport in a bid to fight doping – and a man who knows him well says he’d back him 100 per cent.

Millar, who rode for Team GB at the London 2012 Games, said this week that he might try to cut a path through the bureaucracy to become president of the International Cycling Union in the future.

He said: “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’m not a politician. I’m a borderline militant vigilante at times.

“But it’s in the back on my mind, to be honest. I would like to go there because I think I could make a difference and I’d be doing it for the right reasons.

“I already understand how it works. I can speak to the director general WADA, I can speak to the president of the UCI. I can speak to people and try to make a difference.

“It’s something I might do.”

Millar was talking in the wake of the scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong, who has been accused of riding to seven Tour de France victories on a cocktail of illegal drugs.

He has provisionally been stripped of all his tour wins following investigations into doping in cycling.

Millar was himself banned for two years for using EPO in 2004 but is now a member of the athletes committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

He has also called for UCI honourary president Hein Verbruggen to resign.

He said: “The first step for the UCI is for Verbruggen to be removed.

“He was at the head of the organisation with the biggest doping problem in the history of sport.

“He's still there. He should admit that mistakes were made and we have all made mistakes.”

Meanwhile, Wycombe Cycling Club president Gordon Wright believes ‘it would only be positive’ if Millar was appointed UCI president.

He said: “The head of the UCI has to be a diplomat and a politician. He has to manage a lot of people.

“Whether David has those skills I don’t know.

“But he’s very articulate and his heart would be in the right place.

“It would certainly be a fresh approach and a complete clean-out of the sport would be very good.

“David knows cycling from a rider’s point of view inside and out. He’s seen all sides of it, the good and the bad, and if he’s put his hand up he’d certainly get my vote.”

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