I didn’t want to take it. I knew it was a powerful drug, but I also knew it was a catabolic drug that consumed the body.

It was ridiculous really. I had just won a major race despite not being in top form, yet I was going to dope.

Nothing was being done to help the non-dopers, to encourage or support them. Even the clean riders like myself and Moncout knew how easy it was to cheat the tests.

I’d just killed some of the best riders in the world – and I was clean. I’d taken nothing – no EPO, no cortisone, no testosterone, no painkillers, no caffeine. I had justified to myself...

I was awarded ‘Most Aggressive Rider of the Day’, generally given to the most spectacular loser of the day.

I was not a doper, I told myself – I just injected myself to recover and needed pills to sleep.

If you’re not at the front, you’re not in the race.

I didn’t care about goals or expectations any more, I was just determined to race my heart out.

One group of riders doped, the others alongside them racing clean. You can work out for yourselves which group was fastest.

The past is as important as the future, but we only live in the here and now.

I had grown used to getting a pat on the back and being told after a good result: ‘Well done, David – you should be happy, you’re the first clean rider.

The smallest issues can become the most important things in life and reality slips away.

I might have changed, but that did not mean the sport had.

What an idiot I’d been. What a spoilt brat. What a bloody fool.

It was very quiet at the hotel, as if there had been a death in the family. When you have quit the Tour, nobody really knows what to say or do. (…) Everything I’d previously...

This place has been my home. They liked me here. Not any more. Now they will look the other way. Now I don’t belong.