Millar Aims to Make His Name in Spain By Racing 'boringly'

It is at least 15 years since a Briton figured on the favourites' list for any of the great three-week tours but today, when the Vuelta a Espana begins in Valencia, Scotland's David Millar will be tipped by many as at least an outside chance to be the winner on September 29 in Madrid.

Millar won two stages in last year's Vuelta and has returned determined to "race boringly", as he puts it, and finish in the top five overall to show he can last the distance in a race of this length. His Cofidis team, however, believe he has the ability to be in the first three.

"I've been training hard for the past three weeks, pretty much non-stop, with a lot of six-hour rides," said Millar, who spent two weeks last month getting over a chest infection but has now recovered. "To be honest, all the hard work has been getting to me a bit. Now I need to race."

The Vuelta boasts perhaps the best field of any race apart from the Tour de France, headed by Lance Armstrong's runner-up in July, Joseba Beloki, and the Texan's principal assistant at US Postal, Roberto Heras. But the main interest will centre around two Italians who were excluded from the Tour de France and have several points to prove.

The 2001 Giro d'Italia winner Gilberto Simoni is one, thrown out of the Tour after two cocaine positives in May but cleared after explaining that they were due to an injuidicious choice of boiled sweets. The other is the world's top sprinter Mario Cipollini, whose team did not qualify for the Tour. In July he announced his retirement but he spent August training in secret and is now looking to build up to the world road race championships in October.

Two other Britons besides Millar will start the Vuelta. Both the Devonian Jeremy Hunt and Finnish-born Charly Wegelius are making their debuts in a three-week tour with the same objective: earning a team place for 2003.

Both their sponsors, respectively France's BigMat and Italy's Mapei, are pulling out at the end of the season.

The sprinter Hunt is on something of a roll after winning the Grand Prix Ouest France - one of the biggest single-day events of the summer - on August 25 and will be a favourite for a stage win early on. Wegelius, on the other hand, has built a good reputation as a domestique and now needs to show he can race for himself.