Cycling: Millar lifts gold with awesome display

A faultless performance by David Millar on an arduous World Time Trial Championships course here yesterday, saw the Scot strike gold for the first time in his seven-year career.

Raising his right arm in triumph as he crossed the line at the conclusion of the 41-kilometre (25.48-mile) course, Millar was already aware that his margin of victory was an impressive 1min 25.09sec over the Australian Michael Rogers.

The Scot comfortably beat all the intermediate time checks and caught both the Spaniard Isidro Nozal and the former world champion Sergui Honchar, of Ukraine, who started, respectively, 90 seconds and three minutes before him, en route to Britain's first gold medal in the men's time trial since 1994.

"It was very unpleasant being a major favourite and, to be honest, I felt lousy until this morning," said Millar, who has taken three Tour de France stages in the last four years.

"My training hadn't gone very well, but finally I got it all together. I woke up this morning and realised it could go well." A new £15,000 carbon bike, sponsored by the British Cycling Federation and specially designed for his time trial, had given him extra motivation.

For Millar, the victory atones for a bitter defeat by Jan Ullrich in the World Championships at Lisbon in 2001, and a loss to Rogers, who inched ahead of him in this summer's Tour de France prologue when Millar suffered mechanical problems close to the finish.

Already looking further ahead, Millar said one of his key aims was "to wear this jersey in the Olympic time trial, and en route to give this the kudos it deserves and hasn't really received in recent years".

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for Cycling Weekly