In Search of Robert Millar: Unravelling the Mystery Surrounding Britain’s Most Successful Tour de France Cyclist
The compelling story of Britain’s best-ever cyclist – one of the most enigmatic, complex and contradictory athletes in any sport – and the unravelling of the puzzle surrounding his sudden and dramatic disappearance.Cyclist Robert Millar came from one of Europe’s most industrialised cities, Glasgow, to excel in the most unlikely terrain – over the high mountain passes of the Pyrenees and the Alps. He was crowned King of the Mountains during the 1984 Tour de France and remains the only ever Briton to finish on the podium of the world’s toughest race.In attitude and appearance he was unconventional – the malnourished-looking young Scot with the tiny stud in his ear who could be prickly, irascible and unapproachable – but to many followers he was the epitome of cool. Flying the flag for British cycling, this one-off original became a cult hero.In Search of Robert Millar will follow the career of this other-worldly character, from his tough childhood on the streets of Glasgow in the 1960s to his move to France and success in the world’s most brutal and unforgiving races, including the controversy surrounding his positive drugs test and his enforced retirement from the sport at the age of 36.It examines what set Millar apart from all other British cyclists who tried, and failed, to make an impact in this most European of sports, describing his single-mindedness, his eccentricity and the humour and intelligence that emerged only towards the end of his career.It also proffers explanations for his subsequent disappearance, which repeated a familiar pattern: he vanished from Glasgow and never returned; he left his wife and son and his adopted country, France. Now, it appears, he has turned his back on cycling (amid rumours that he had undergone a sex-change operation).Through interviews with Millar’s friends, acquaintances, cycling colleagues and ex-classmates, author Richard Moore helps to unravel the mystery of this maverick Scotsman, arguably one of the greatest enigmas in a sport full of remarkable characters.
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IN SEARCH OF ROBERT MILLAR
Richard Moore
HarperSport
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in hardback in 2007 by HarperSport an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © Richard Moore 2007
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Source ISBN: 9780007235018
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283880 Version: 2017-01-12
Contents
1 It’s the Grit that Makes the Oyster
3 The Smaller They Are, the Harder They Fight
11 You Don’t Put Ordinary Fuel in a Sports Car
About the Publisher
‘… remaining unknowable is the only true way to be known …’
Colum McCann, from Dancer
I can remember, quite clearly, my first encounter with Robert Millar. It was at lunchtime on Saturday, 21 July 1984. I was 11 at the time. Robert Millar will remember the occasion more vividly, because while I was watching television with my dad in my family’s living room, he was in the Haute-Ariège area of the Pyrenees, climbing a steep, winding road that ended at the ski station at Guzet Neige – the finish of stage 11 of the Tour de France.
We had recently moved to England from Scotland, and my Scottishness was being pointed out to me repeatedly. A PE teacher nicknamed me ‘Jock’, and it stuck. I hated being singled out. On the other hand, I quite liked it too. But I was desperately, urgently looking for allies – namely, fellow Jocks – wherever I could, even on television, even participating in obscure sporting events. I looked at the TV screen but couldn’t really work out what was going on. There was a small group of sweating cyclists straining against a steep gradient and suffering in the blazing heat. So this was the Tour de France. It looked pretty boring.
I asked my dad, who was receiving his weekly fix of the Tour de France on ITV’s World of Sport, whether any Scottish cyclists were competing in this strange event. ‘There is one Scot,’ he replied, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘Robert Millar, from Glasgow. That’s him there.’
Now I was interested. I was struck by the name, by its ordinariness. He didn’t sound like he belonged there. ‘Robert Millar’ jarred alongside the exotic-sounding Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Pedro Delgado, even the American with the French-sounding name, Greg LeMond. And yet, although I didn’t know it at the time, in the wiry, compact form of Robert Millar I had just stumbled upon someone who was not only Scottish but most certainly – and defiantly – different; someone who didn’t just mind standing out, or apart, from the crowd, but actually seemed to want to.
‘Will he win?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said my dad, with good old-fashioned Scottish pessimism-realism.
But Dad was wrong, or at least partially wrong. I kept watching. I can vividly recall the footage of the Tour on that particular day, with commentary that sounded like it was coming from outer space. The grainy quality of the pictures and the sounds made the broadcast seem other-worldly. It was, in fact, less like watching sport and more like witnessing astronauts landing on the moon, or mountaineers arriving at the summit of Everest. And I remember Millar winning the stage, his second Pyrenean victory in consecutive years, on his way to claiming one of the race’s three great prizes, the title of King of the Mountains. He was the first and to this day remains the only English speaker ever to wear the fabled polka-dot jersey awarded to the King of the Mountains all the way to the finish in Paris.
