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news
David Millar MSR 2012 © Simon MacMichael"Sick" David Millar unhappy at being cut from Garmin-Sharp's Tour de France line-up
David Millar has taken to Twitter to express his sadness and frustration at being left out of Garmin-Sharp’s team for the Tour de France despite the rider, who is in his swansong season, being told last week that he would be taking part in the race for the 13th and final time. Meanwhile, Alex Dowsett of Movistar is also out of the race as he struggles with his fitness.
Millar did not finish yesterday’s national championship road race and on Thursday had also failed to complete the time trial, and in the early hours of this morning the 37-year-old tweeted:
None of my team will answer the phone to me. I under-performed at the nationals. I'm now so scared about losing my Tour spot I can't sleep.
— David Millar (@millarmind) June 30, 2014
Today, Millar - a four-time stage winner and former wearer of the yellow jersey - broke the news to fans that he wouldn’t be in the race in a tweet that mentioned some of the other British riders who will be missing.
I was selected for TdF last week, then they pulled me last night. Wiggo, Dowsett, Pete, Swifty, fancy a city break? I hear York's nice.
— David Millar (@millarmind) June 30, 2014
For the record, I was going to be ready for the Tour, so sad my team didn't believe in me, after everything we've been through. Not cool.
— David Millar (@millarmind) June 30, 2014
Confirming the team today which will be led by Critérium du Dauphiné winner Andrew Talansky, Garmin-Sharp sports director Charly Wegelius said: “Had David Millar been healthy, he would have been a phenomenal team member. We would have loved to have him.
“Unfortunately, as seen over the weekend, David is sick, so we were forced to make a difficult and sad decision. That said, I am confident that we have put together an excellent group of riders that will be best equipped to ride a great race and support Andrew.
“It’s going to be an exciting Tour and as always, we will look to animate the race and bring excitement home to our fans.”
Millar was back on Twitter this evening:
For Sale. Been raced, not much. Battery fully charged (I think). Good condition. Reasonable offers please. pic.twitter.com/aFuGc5P5aB
— David Millar (@millarmind) June 30, 2014
Meanwhile, Dowsett had been due to ride the Tour, and Stage 3 passes through his native Essex, but has been struggling with breathing problems leading Movistar’s management to reluctantly leave him out of the team announced today.
Despite the emergence of Great Britain as a major power in world cycling since the Tour’s last visit to these shores in 2007, it looks as though the race will get under way on Saturday with just three British riders participating – defending champion Chris Froome and Sky team mate Geraint Thomas, plus Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Mark Cavendish.
As William Fotheringham points out in the Guardian, that’s two fewer than the five who took to the start in London 2007, and in a year when the race returns to England, it seems certain that not a single rider born in the country will participate.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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58 comments
Charly Wegelius is knob.... road worlds madrid.........
Pah... we'd have all done the same thing in their shoes.
They'd have earnt more in that day than they had for half the year.
Since then BC have rather more generous team bonuses in place for worlds success than they did back then.
Oh dear, more Sun-reader style 'expert' commentary
Meanwhile the contributors to the excellent Cycling Podcast reflect on Millar's exclusion in a blog that accompanies it:
http://thecyclingpodcast.com/Millar
The episode recorded with Millar, when he was expecting to ride the Tour, is embedded there and is well worth a listen. In the latest entry they give their Tour predictions; interestingly, two of the three predict Contador for GC!
With all the outpouring of grief over the supposed mistreatment of Millar, please remember he is an ex drug cheat who has admitted to doping again after his suspension and then claims to be subsequently clean. In most other sports doping after an initial ban that warrants a life ban. So he has been lucky to be in any of the the last 9 tours at all.
However, he has also been public about his emotional problems and particularly his depression in the past. So the team (of which he is part owner if I recall correctly?!) should have handled it in a more professional manner and taken into account that it was likely that he would have a strong emotional reaction.
Oooh, this is news to me,,, when and where did he dope post suspension, and where can I read more about this?
Yeah, I'd like to see more info re this as well - preferably with links to a solid credible source, not a throwaway post by...someone....on a forum.
All seems to have sorted itself out now, shame it was done publicly.
Just read on twitter that Millar will be joining ITV for the Tour. He was very informative when he was on the BBC in the past (I can't remember if it was Ride London or World Champs).
Another reason to watch ITV over Eurosport. Boulting, Rendell, Boardman, Imlach and now Millar: probably the best presenting team in sport. Just a shame about having to put up with Phil & Paul for the commentary.
Indeed. With a team like that, you have to wonder why Phil and Paul still get the commentary roles?
I think Phil & Paul work for an American network and then ITV and other English speaking networks use their feed. Probably cheaper for ITV than paying the ASO for their own commentary position.
I spent about half an hour trying to win a shite Fleury Michon t-shirt at a festival last year, purely because I'd seen their name on Europcars mitts.
I later learnt they do food, so I bought some of their ham and chicken for sandwiches.
I definitely wont be putting any Garmins on my Lunch after this debacle.
What about the forgotten man of British cycling, Steve Cummings? He hasn't been selected either. Is he injured?
Surprised at Simon Yates' inclusion. I assumed he was too young. And Orica select Simon why not Adam too?
No, their jobs don't rely on results, they rely on sponsorship: prize money income is a small fraction of sponsorship income.
And sponsorship is not solely served by having the best podium placings, otherwise no French business would sponsor a team, and T-Mobile would have kept up with their sponsorship even when all the doping stuff was going on ("hey, they're still getting the results, right?").
It's important, but it's not the sole criterion.
Agreed (though I'm not sure about the T-Mobile bit).
I didn't mean prize money, I meant doing well by whatever parameters were set in the first place. That means different things to the various teams. Although he doesn't win very often Voeckler has done more to promote Europcar than any amount of advert airtime. However, let's not pretend that being off the front for a bit during a stage then mincing about and finishing mid-pack is necessarily going to make a DS or sponsor happy.
Fucking Mint!
Yatesy is in for OricaGreenEdge.
Proper local lad, Great news.
This thread demonstrates all that is great and ghastly with internet forums... love it.
I think the whole point of forums is to vent spleens, to voice uneducated opinions, so to suggest this should not happen, kind of negates the whole point of a forum!
Back on topic.... I would suggest that if Millar looks very hard in the mirror from an objective viewpoint, he will see he has been the master of his own destiny here.
Its not that Vaughters dropped him after one poor performance at the nationals, its because Millar put himself in a position where a poor ride at the nationals would be enough to for Vaughters to feel he has to drop him from the team. He has been far too anonymous all season.
This happened to me in 2010. My whole season had been built around the Tour Series, more specifically to the home round of the tour series in Exeter. I was only interested in being ready for those 5 weeks and really that one race.
Accordingly as I built my form for that event, my results up to to May that year left much reason for questioning my form. Going into my first Tour Series round (two days before my home round) I did a terrible ride, crashed three times and accordingly came no where.
The next afternoon, I was informed that I was dropped for my home round. I was gutted, furious, even more so when I had to then cancel the interview appointments I had with local media.
Looking back at it though, I put myself into a position where I could be dropped from one bad ride, and as I see it, this is the same thing here.
I am sure if included, Millar would do a sterling job; he has still produced great results in the tour when in poor form, injured and ill... but the point is, given the choice, why would a manager take that risk, when there is someone clearly in sterling form, ready and waiting to go?
See, you started so well, "uneducated opinions" etc, then managed to ruin it with a reasoned, educated opinion, and even had the cheek to back it up with directly relevant experience! God damn it.
No sympathy for Millar,its a hard headed business and they cant run it on sentiment for an unfit 37 year old who wants a procession and a final wave off
No pity for him or Wiggins
Charly Wegelius like Dave Brailsford made intelligent unemotional decisions,it would a disaster for both teams if either rider were included
Millar and Wiggins are two completely different situations, if Wiggins had been able to move teams before the tour I'd wager that there are a good number of teams who would have snapped Sky's arms off.
No rider could ever take on the tour as a "procession", and you can guarantee it that Millar would still see himself doing a job and putting himself on the line for the team, no holds barred. To suggest otherwise is somewhat naive.
Balls, he was in my fantasy team!
He's been very poor this year. I've seen a lot of press about hs custom shoes but nothing about his riding. He's way, way down in the WT rankings.
Perhaps he should have called it a day last year instead.
Sad for Millar, sad for British cycling fans. But - wow - how unprofessional he's been in the past few days.
As Mr Vaughters is always so keen for cycling fans to let the sponsors know directly that they buy their products because of the sponsorship, I suggest a Scotland wide boycott of Garmin and Sharp whilst letting them know on Twitter! Sook ma plooms!
What a shame that there isn't someone out there prepared to put a top class British team together. We have the riders, just not the will to really push British road racing forward.
For a country where cycling is booming, the Tour is now bereft of a lot of the riders that the average spectator will be familiar with. That's sad.
I guess when Dave invested in the team, there must have been an agreement that he couldn't influence team selection in order to prevent conflict of interest.
The prospect of an old man's breakaway featuring Jens and Dave would have made for a hell of chase. I'm disappointed.
I suspect this could all back fire spectacularly on Vaughters when Talansky finishes somewhere around 5 to 10 minutes behind Contador and Froome on GC. With no sprinter in the team it could be a lean Tour for Garmin, perhaps. Time will tell but the team will have lost a lot of the goodwill they get from cycling fans as the plucky underdogs / have-a-go heroes.
Like him or loathe him, at least Millar generates headlines and is always good copy for the journo's - isn't that what a sponsor requires? Sad way to end up for Millar, definitely not how he envisaged his farewell tour.
I fully understand that cycling is a professional sport, it's a big business that wants, and probably needs to be bigger so I also fully understand that sometimes decisions need to be made in the interests of the team. Sometimes these won't be popular decisions but I'm still disappointed at not being able to see the riders I like, and want to see and cheer on, riding the biggest cycling race in the world. Surely we can be allowed that?
It's also going to be highly frustrating to explain to people observing casually why certain riders aren't there, why there are no English riders, or why there is no Wiggins, or Quintana or Dan Martin etc but that's the way life is, Se a vida é as the Pet Shop Boys warbled in a summery fashion.
However, I do have one other thought; If sentimentality and romance is being thrown out of the window this year, then surely this means that if there is a chance of a win on the last day, no matter how slim, whichever team is chasing will be attacking like ravenous dogs in to Paris?
Forget the procession on to the Champs Elysees to allow everyone to roll in on the same time or there abouts, they should be attacking the Maillot Jaune all the way, for every stage.
Yes - especially because the "all together behind one leader" strategy that Sky, Garmin and others are following is very foolhardy.
Sky reckon Froome needs the eight best, most committed support riders, so Wiggins is out. Garmin think the same for Talansky. It's GC or nothing.
But this is the Tour. S**t happens. In particular: Cobbles happen. Crashes happen. Collarbones happen, and worse. And let's be honest, drug busts happen, even if the rider has assured his DSs he's completely clean. The chance of your star rider actually surviving to the end of the Tour are surely smaller than any other professional sport.
When this happens, all is not lost - if you have a crowd-pleaser like Wiggo or a breakaway artist like Millar. You can still get the airtime and maybe a stage victory or two. Sky and Garmin don't have this, and I'm not convinced it will end well for them.
Not sure what happened to this tweet from Millarmind - deleted?
Garmin and Sharp, I love you. This is between me & @wegelius & @Vaughters & @dellisny. I just wanted you to know.
That one, along with a couple of others that would have got most people fired from their jobs were removed shortly after posting when he had a sudden outbreak of common sense. (Or someone from the team phoned up and told him to delete them).
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