When two plainclothes policemen arrested champion cyclist David Millar in a restaurant near Biarritz in 2004 for doping, it marked the beginning of a two-year exile from cycling and the end of everything else: his multimillion dollar contract with one of the biggest teams in the sport, his opulent lifestyle, the support of his teammates and closest friends, and the gold medal he’d won months before at the world championships. This candid memoir follows a young and idealistic cyclist from the early-morning streets of Hong Kong to the highest echelons of the sport in France where, overcome by peer pressure and the stress of remaining at the top, he started using the red blood cell–boosting substance EPO. Millar, reinstated to the sport and now an ardent critic of doping, paints an intriguing and frenetic portrait of professional cycling and of the pressures and seediness lurking beneath the surface. As pulse-pounding and suspenseful as a thriller, this piercing, moving memoir shines a light into the dark corners of cycling and, by extension, all of world-class sport.
