Millar Can Ride 2006 Tour After Appeal

The former world time trial champion and triple Tour de France stage winner David Millar, who is serving a two-year drugs ban, is now theoretically clear to compete in the 2006 Tour after the Court of Arbitration in Sport yesterday upheld his appeal for the dates of his suspension to be changed. His request for the ban to be cut to 12 months was thrown out.

On June 24 2004 Millar was arrested by French police investigating allegations of drug use in his team, Cofidis, and later confessed to having used the banned red blood cell booster erythropoietin (EPO) on three occasions in 2001 and 2003. He was suspended provisionally from competing on July 2, and the two-year ban was imposed by British Cycling on August 5, to run until August 4 2006.

A CAS tribunal ruled the ban should be taken to have started on the day that Millar was arrested, and the ban will thus end on June 23 2006. It ruled that the selection of any date for the start of a ban other than the date on which an athlete was prevented from competing could result in "an arbitrary prolongation of the athlete's removal from the sport".

The 28-year-old Scot was not available for comment yesterday. However, it is known that he has been contemplating racing after the ban ends - he has apparently obtained a bike with a view to resuming training - and the reduction will give him a fresh incentive, as it means he may be able to race in the 2006 Tour de France.

That will depend on whether he is able to find a place in a team after Cofidis sacked him on July 19. It will also depend on whether he remains involved in the drugs inquiry into Cofidis, as the Tour de France does not allow teams to include cyclists who are the subject of police investigations. Currently, he is under formal investigation on a charge of possessing and using toxic substances.

Millar appealed for his ban to be reduced to one year, and produced statements of support from Dave Brailsford, the British Cycling deputy chief executive and head of the World Class Performance Programme, Chris Boardman's former trainer Peter Keen, and a consultant psychologist Dr Steve Peters. He has stated that he will make himself available to work with British Cycling to warn young athletes against the dangers of doping.

"Millar's frankness, determination and commendable intentions impressed the panel," said the CAS ruling, which added the offences he committed were "conscious, repetitive, substantial and designed to achieve unfair advantage", and that it thought the two-year ban should stand.