Cycling: Millar Plans Racing Comeback

David Millar is contemplating a comeback to racing when his drug ban ends and has appealed to the Court of Arbitration in Sport for a reduction in his two-year suspension after his admission that he had used the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).

"I want to come back to cycling and missing three Tours de France seems excessive so I am trying to appeal the ban to get it reduced to a more reasonable amount," said the British rider.

A statement from the CAS said Millar was contesting both the duration of his suspension, which is longer than recent bans for profes sionals who have used EPO, and the start date, August 5, which is some five weeks after the date of his confession.

A reduction in the ban by two or three months would enable Millar to contest the 2006 Tour de France. He missed this year's race because he was provisionally suspended by British Cycling and his professional team Cofidis after his confession.

Millar, who won three stages in the Tour de France between 2000 and 2003, was last week stripped of the world time-trial title he won last October.

"David fully accepts the decision of the UCI to remove his world championship jersey, but he wanted to keep his options open in terms of making a comeback," said Millar's sister Frances, who manages his affairs.

Meanwhile, the six-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is claiming a total of €3m (£2m) in damages in two separate lawsuits for defamation after publication on June 15 of the unauthorised biography LA Confidential, which implies the Texan cancer survivor may have used banned drugs.

The book has become a best-seller in France but has not been published in English.

Armstrong has consistently denied having any recourse to drugs and, according to legal notices released to Agence France-Presse, has recently launched two separate lawsuits, based on the claim that the book is a commercial exercise intended to make extensive profits at the expense of his reputation.

The first suit is against the publishers of the book, Editions de la Martinière, the authors David Walsh and Pierre Ballester, and his former team masseuse Emma O'Reilly, who is quoted at length in the book. O'Reilly is also named in the second case, against the news magazine l'Express, which published extensive extracts before publication.

Lawyers for the publishers and magazine are attempting to arrange a joint hearing for the two cases, which may not be heard until 2006.

On July 2, a Paris judge rejected an appeal from Armstrong for the book to be taken off sale, or to be issued with a card stating that it contained defamatory material.

· Italy's Leonardo Piepoli of the Saunier Duval team yesterday won the climbers' 101-mile ninth stage of the Tour of Spain to Alto de Aitana. Floyd Landis of the US Postal team retained the race leader's gold jersey.