2003 world time trial champion, fined CHF2,000 (approx. €1250), and disqualified from the 2003 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré and 2001 Vuelta a España. Cofidis fired Millar and withdrew from racing while it carried out an internal investigation. Several Cofidis riders and assistants were fired. Alain Bondue, the team's director, and Menuet, the doctor, left the team. Vasseur was forbidden to start the 2004 Tour de France but later cleared. Millar failed in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reduce his ban, but the court did backdate his suspension to the day he confessed, 24 June 2004. Millar was prosecuted in a French court in Nanterre in 2006 with nine other defendants, mostly from Cofidis. The court decided it was not clear he had taken drugs in France and that charges could not be pursued. The doctor he had consulted lived in Spain, south of Biarritz and across the Pyrenees. Millar's statement to the judge stated that he had succumbed to the pressure of racing, the expectations placed on him by British fans, and an inability to make close friends. Winning the prologue of the Tour de France made things worse; he had worn the maillot jaune of leadership – his "dream", he said – and when it was all over he was back in his apartment with no friends and just a television for company. Millar has claimed that doping gained him 25 seconds in the 2003 world time-trial championship. He toasted his championship in the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas. But the suspension cost Millar his job, his income and his house. Millar then began abusing alcohol for much of a year. He said he had scraped by with the help of family and friends. Later career 2005–2007: Post-suspension Millar moved to Hayfield, on the edge of the Peak District of northern England, to be close to the Manchester Velodrome where British cycling has its headquarters. He joined a Spanish team, . Its manager, Mauro Gianetti, had contacted him nine months into his suspension. Millar's suspension ended a week before the 2006 Tour de France and he rode with . He finished 17th in the prologue and 11th on the penultimate, time-trial stage. He finished 59th of 139 finishers, more than 2 hours behind the winner, Óscar Pereiro. In the 2006 Vuelta a España, Millar won in stage 14, a time trial around the city