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Saturday's EuroFile: Millar joins WADA panel; magazine links Ullrich, Fuentes
David Millar has taken a seat on the World Anti-Doping Agency's Athlete Committee, the organization announced this week.
The 30-year-old Scot, who joined the Slipstream team as a part owner for 2008, has been a strong anti-doping advocate since serving a two-year suspension for confessing to using EPO.
Millar, who will join elite athletes from throughout the world on the committee for one year beginning January 1, is the first athlete from Great Britain to serve on the committee.
"I'm delighted to have been elected and am looking forward to getting involved," Millar told The Scotsman. "I feel I have a lot to offer both in terms of enabling others to learn from my experiences, and in ensuring that athletes are at the heart of the anti-doping movement."
Millar had support from UK Sport in his new endeavor.
"David will be an excellent addition to WADA's Athletes Committee," said Andy Parkinson, UK Sport’s head of operations. "Since we started working with him we have been consistently impressed with the passion and commitment he has shown to the cause. His insights have been hugely valuable to us and I have no doubt our counterparts worldwide will be impressed."
Magazine links Ullrich, Fuentes
Former German cycling star Jan Ullrich was consulting Eufemiano Fuentes, the Spanish doctor whose blood-doping network was exposed last year, as early as 2003, according to reports in the German press.
Monday's edition of the German weekly magazine Focus includes a report alleging that German prosecutors have seized receipts and documents that indicate the 1997 Tour de France winner had traveled to Madrid to see Fuentes.
Ullrich retired in February this year, having been sacked by his T-Mobile team in July 2006 after he was linked to Fuentes when Spanish police raided the doctor's offices in Madrid.
The German has always denied using performance-enhancing substances, but prosecutors in Bonn charge that Ullrich had packets of his blood stored in Fuentes' offices and had paid 25,000 euros to the Spaniard in 2004.
According to Focus, investigators also found receipts proving Ullrich paid Fuentes 55,000 euros in 2006.
In November, Focus reported that Rudy Pevenage, the former boss of the Telekom cycling team, knew Ullrich had used the banned blood booster EPO in 1996. —Agence France Presse
