Racing Through the Dark
Crash. Burn. Coming Clean. Coming Back.
-
-
4.5 • 100 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
WORLD-CLASS CYCLIST, Tour de France stage winner, and time trial specialist David Millar offers a vivid portrait of his life in professional cycling—including his soul-searing detour into performance-enhancing drugs, his dramatic arrest and two-year ban, and his ultimate decision to return to the sport he loves to race clean—in this arrestingly candid memoir, which he wrote himself.
As a young Scottish expat living in Hong Kong with his father after his parents’ divorce, Millar showed early promise with mountain biking and BMX. Two wise local cyclists took him under their wings, encouraging him to concentrate on road racing. Millar proved a ready convert. Racing Through the Dark offers the winning account of his climb through the ranks—first as an amateur and then as a pro, riding for the French team Cofidis. Among his early triumphs were several stage wins in the Tour de France.
From the moment Millar turned pro, he began to see hints of the unethical measures that many— maybe most—of the other pros were taking in order to race at the very tops of their games . . . and beyond. At first, he felt that he was immune to temptation, that he could win clean. But the ugly pervasiveness of performance-enhancing drugs and the seemingly universal attitude that condoned it began to corrode his willpower. Racing Through the Dark details his eventual capitulation, his subsequent arrest and two-year ban from cycling, and his remarkable comeback as a clean cyclist who is now doing his utmost to keep performance-enhancing drugs out of the sport he so loves.
Filled with thrilling descriptions of the world’s most spectacular courses, Racing Through the Dark captures the pure joy of cycling and includes some of the most vivid accounts of racing ever written by a true insider.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
World-class cyclist Millar examines his tarnished quest to the top of his sport in his stunning memoir, going from an impassioned Scot amateur in Hong Kong to a highly competitive professional corrupted by drugs on the way to victory. He describes his confused youth with his divorced father, smitten by bike riding through the lush parks of Hong Kong. Whether it's the Sydney Olympics or the Tour de France, Millar willingly shares with the reader the tortuous pressure of racing, the burning pain in the legs and lungs, and calls the competition "intense, excoriating, wonderful." Unlike other cycling pros implicated in doping scandals, he writes candidly about Michele Ferrari, "the guru of sport doctors," and the permissive environment surrounding performance-enhancing drugs, noting some guys pushed the existing limits. Following his humiliating arrest by French authorities, Millar surveys his win-at-all-cost attitude, teams with fellow antidrug racers Doug Ellis and Jonathan Vaughters to campaign against doping through strict adherence, and has an amazing 2006 comeback. Anyone interested in the grueling world of the men in professional cycling ought to read this candid, courageous book of Millar's journey from regret to redemption.
Customer Reviews
Racing through the dark.
Great story of a journey through professional cycling and life.
Not the greatest
Not the greatest story. Seems like every other "tell all" book on doping in cycling. He would touch on subjects, get you interested and then change the subject so as not to offend anyone. I think he has a lot of info but he doesn't seem to want to be the one to break the silence.
Astounding, touching, and at once profoundly humbling and healing.
Thank you David Miller!!! I don't mind telling you the 8 year old BMX racer in me wept several times, at the beauty, grace, and lessons you strip bare. Bravo.