Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar - Softcover

Millar, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1409134415 ISBN 13: 9781409134411

Publisher: Orion, 2011

Synopsis

By his 18th 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 with the Cofidis team, who had one Lance Armstrong on their books. He perhaps lived the high life a little too enthusiastically -- high on a roof after too much drink , he broke his heel in a fall, 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.

About this title

Review

His tale - bizarrely - has become just about the most inspiring in all of cycling, perhaps any sport. If you want to find out how cyclists dope, it's here; if you want to discover why they do it, there has never been a more vivid account. But the defining achievement of RACING THROUGH THE DARK is that it makes you believe in cycling again. (OBSERVER)

One of the great first-person accounts of sporting experience... laceratingly honest, detailing every twist in the argument by which he convinced himself to take a step he had previously considered unthinkable... anyone seeking to understand the motivation of a drug cheat, or wondering why such a man should be allowed back into his sport will find their curiosity satisfied here. (Richard Williams GUARDIAN)

Unbeatable as a snapshot of the professional peloton, its agonies and ecstasies... Emotional yet in no way overwrought, Millar's memoirs read like a parable more than a manifesto... essential reading for all young riders as well as fans. (PRO CYCLING)

The greatest strength of this plainly but compellingly told story is that it doesn't shock. Millar is searingly honest about his own failings and neuroses but his book is intelligent, subtle, nuanced, not flowery or overly descriptive - and it is all the more powerful for it...This will go down as one of the great sporting autobiographies (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY)

RACING THROUGH THE DARK will be a shoo-in for every award going this year with its controlled writing about the ins and outs of his descent into doping and personal crisis and his return to the world (William Fotheringham OBSERVER - Tour Diary)

A sporting masterpiece, a timeless snapshot of a sportsman plumbing the depths and miraculously bouncing back both as a rider and a man. (DAILY TELEGRAPH)

[An] excellent autobiography... well written... surely one of the sports books of the year. (METRO)

He has, as this excellent work testifies, seen it all and done it all, full throttle. This is a shocking expose of the corruption at the heart of a wonderful sport. Those who run cycling at every level would be well advised to closely study it, though history tells us they probably won't. (Conor Lally IRISH TIMES)

Britain's most intriguing cyclist... this is no ordinary memoir... this is an extremely rare first-hand account of what drugs and doping have done to the sport of cycling over the last two decades (LITERARY REVIEW)

The story of his [Millar's] fall from grace is gripping. (SPORT MAGAZINE)

Book Description

Tour de France cyclist comes to terms with drug use and cleans up

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1409134415
• ISBN 13: 9781409134411
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368