Move To France and Further Amateur Success
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.
While other British riders often found living away from home a problem, Millar was happy to travel abroad, and wasn't homesick. He married a French woman, and lived with her in France.
Read more about this topic: Robert Millar, 1979 To 80
Famous quotes containing the words move, france, amateur and/or success:
“The idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day—that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men’s eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“America was too big to have been discovered all at one time. It would have been better for the graces if it had been discovered in pieces of about the size of France or Germany at a time.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)