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Robert Millar (born 13 September 1958) is a Scottish former professional road racing cyclist. Millar won the "King of the Mountains" competition in the 1984 Tour de France and finished fourth overall. Millar was the first rider from an English speaking country to have won the Mountains classification in the Tour de France. This success was the first time a British rider won a major Tour classification, and was unsurpassed as the highest Tour finish for a Briton until Bradley Wiggins was retrospectively placed third in the 2009 Tour de France. He is one of only four Britons to have won a Tour de France jersey competition along with Wiggins, Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish. He rode the Tour de France eleven times completing the race eight times. Millar also achieved the highest finish by a Briton in the Giro d'Italia, finishing second in 1987 and also winning the King of the Mountains classification. As well as the Giro second-place finish, he finished second in two other Grand Tours: the 1985 and 1986 Vuelta a España. Millar was the first British rider to achieve three top three finishes in grand tours (an achievement only equalled when Wiggins was promoted to third in the 2009 Tour de France in 2012). He was set to win the 1985 Vuelta before losing the leader's jersey on the penultimate stage due to collusion by the Spanish-speaking teams. Millar won the 1985 Volta a Catalunya, the 1989 Tour of Britain and the 1990 Dauphiné Libéré. ==Early life and amateur career== Millar was raised in Glasgow, Scotland. At one time destined for a career as a factory engineer, Millar attended Shawlands Academy in the south of the city.〔(Millar geared up to be king – again ) Evening Times, 29 June 1989 (Google News)〕 He initially began riding for Glenmarnock Wheelers cycling club and quickly established himself as a leading amateur road racing rider. As a relatively small man meaning he had comparatively less weight to carry uphill, it was as a specialist hill & mountain cyclist that he was to excel. He won the Scottish junior title in 1976 and was Scottish hill-climb champion the following year. In 1978, Millar established himself on the British scene. He was twenty-first in the Milk Race, and won the British amateur road race championship. Willie Gibb, a Scottish National Road Champion, recalls the introverted Millar growing up, 'Even at school he had a total disregard for what people thought of him and he was very obstinate,' explains Gibb. "I mean, I knew him from when we were at primary school and at fifteen you would say he was a bit odd and that didn't change all the time I knew him. He was a loner and he put off a lot of people in Scotland with his attitude"〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=RobertMillar.net )〕 He moved to France in 1979 to join the ACBB (Athletic Club Boulogne-Billancourt), one of Europe's top amateur teams. Millar was as ever focused and quickly began winning races such the Grand Prix de la Ville de Lillers. This success brought him the admiration of his ACBB manager Claude Escalon. However his single minded persona was also not going unnoticed. Whilst living in his Paris flat a young British rider by the name of Mark Bell arrived, a little lost, finds a bed and tried to find his feet. Lying in his room, staring at the ceiling, he heard a noise in the kitchen and went to investigate. He found Millar, who said next to nothing to him, made his dinner as Bell looked on, took it back to his room and shut the door behind him. Thus it is little wonder Jamie McGahan, a fellow Glaswegian who raced with Millar described him as being a great rider but never a very warm character.〔 In 1980, after retaining his British road title, taking fourth place in the world amateur road championship, claiming five wins in France and winning the French 'Best Amateur' Trophy, he turned professional for the Peugeot cycling team, and as a climbing specialist focused on single-day road races and stage races in hilly or mountainous terrain. Millar was happy to travel abroad, and wasn't homesick. He married a French woman, and lived with her in France. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert Millar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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