David Millar (born 4 January 1977 ) is a Scottish retired professional road racing cyclist.
1992
He bought a road bike in 1992 and raced at 6.30 in the morning before the roads began filling with traffic.
At King George V School he chose mathematics, economics and geography as his A-level, pre-university, examination subjects, then switched to art, graphics and sports studies at his father's suggestion.
He completed his A-levels and, having moved back to England to be with his mother in Maidenhead, enrolled at an arts college.
He started cycling with a club in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
His mother, Avril, took him there so that he would make new friends and have something to do.
At age 18, a week before he was due to start at the arts college, he went to race in France.
He joined a club at St-Quentin, in the Picardy region, and won eight races.
Five professional teams offered him a contract.
He signed with Cyrille Guimard because his team, Cofidis, was based in the area and he knew of Guimard's skill in recognising young talent.
In his first professional season, Millar won the prologue of the Tour de l'Avenir and the competition for the best young rider in the Mi-Août Breton.
1997
He rode for Cofidis from 1997 to 2004 and Garmin–Sharp from 2008 to 2014.
He has won four stages of the Tour de France, five of the Vuelta a España and one stage of the Giro d'Italia.
2000
He profited from his background in 10-mile time-trials in Britain to win the first stage of the 2000 Tour de France, a 16 km time-trial at Futuroscope.
He held the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for a few days.
2001
He failed to repeat his feat at Dunkirk in 2001 after puncturing in a bend and crashing.
Hopes of winning the Tour de France were fuelled by his stage win in the 2001 Vuelta a España, when he was in a breakaway with Santiago Botero on a mountain stage.
Millar won a gold medal for Malta in the 2001 Games of the Small States of Europe, held in San Marino.
2002
He finished fifth in the prologue in 2002 on a rolling course at Luxembourg.
Millar was selected for the Scotland team for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, but withdrew to compete for Cofidis instead.
2003
His attempt to win the prologue in central Paris in the centenary Tour of 2003 ended when his chain dropped off 500 m before the finish.
He lost by 0.14 s to Brad McGee.
Millar had ridden a bike without a front derailleur to save weight.
He blamed his directeur sportif, Alain Bondue.
"It wasn't a problem with my chainring; it was a problem with my team", he told journalists at the finish.
He said Bondue had tried to save a few grams by removing the derailleur.
Bondue said he had told Millar to use a front derailleur after other riders had similar problems.
Bondue was demoted to logistics manager.
2004
Millar was banned for two years in 2004 after he admitted to taking banned performance-enhancing drugs.
Upon his return from his ban, Millar became an anti-doping campaigner, a stance which eventually resulted in journalist Alasdair Fotheringham describing him as an 'elder statesman' of cycling.
Millar is the son of Gordon and Avril Millar, both Scots.
His father was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and Millar was born in Mtarfa, Malta, while his father was based there for a three-year tour of duty.
His mother worked as a teacher.
He has a sister, Frances (Fran) who also works in cycling, currently as the chief executive officer of Team Ineos.
The family returned to the United Kingdom, and lived at RAF Kinloss in Scotland before moving to Aylesbury, 60 km north-west of London.
His father and mother divorced when Millar was 11 and his father moved to Hong Kong, when he joined the airline Cathay Pacific, which is based there.
Millar considers Hong Kong as his home.
Millar moved to Hong Kong to join his father when he was 13.
He rode in BMX bike races in Hong Kong "and did pretty well."
2007
He was the British national road champion and the national time trial champion, both in 2007.
