Mighty Millar Looks to the Alps

There was no need for David Millar to extend himself on the Ventoux yesterday, so he did not. "Fourteen minutes" was the amount of time his manager Alain Bondue expected his "anglais" to finish behind Richard Virenque; in the end the Scot was 18 minutes back, but that does not matter.

On Saturday in Béziers Millar had seized the stage victory he had been seeking, so yesterday his plan was to save his strength for this week's Alpine legs. "It's a question of motivation now, and my motivation is still good."

"Purely physical" is how Millar describes the Ventoux but he is as aware of the mythic qualities of the mountain as any other cyclist. He rode his first Tour, in 2000, with the back pocket of his racing jersey carrying a stone given him by one of Tom Simpson's daughters, who had taken it from close to her father's memorial high up on the mountain where he had famously died in 1967.

Millar is the most charismatic British cyclist since Simpson, and may one day achieve the kind of public profile which the Nottinghamshire rider achieved in the 1960s. Meanwhile, he has already matched Simpson by wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour, and in Béziers he achieved the stage win which always eluded his predecessor.

It was in the air from the moment before the start when he told Bondue he would win, and his manager made him sign a piece of paper to that effect. Knowing that the day's escape would go on the first hill, which reared up from the départ, Millar made sure he was in the front row of riders. At the finish, he forced the decisive split and won the slightly uphill sprint in emphatic style.

"It means a lot because when I found out that I had glandular fever in January I thought my season was over," he said afterwards. "I was feeling so strong [today]. I don't think I made one mistake, I was having such good fun. It was like a game of chess, anticipating from 60 kilometres out how I was going to win. It was an incredible day, the kind of feeling you get once or twice a year."

Inevitably, after winning a road race stage - becoming only the sixth Briton to do so - there will be speculation that Millar is ready to tilt for a high overall placing in the Tour. He makes no bones about the fact that a good showing in the Tour of Spain must take precedence, and in any case, as he said on Saturday, "there is no point trying for the Tour de France until Lance [Armstrong] retires."