David Millar looks set to be stripped of his world time-trial title after he confessed to police that he had taken the banned performance enhancer EPO.

On a bleak day for Britain's top cyclist, Millar emerged from a courtroom in the Paris suburb of Nanterre after a two-hour grilling to discover that his Cofidis team had decided to wash their hands of him.

"The letter sacking David Millar left yesterday," a spokesman for Cofidis said.

If Millar is stripped of his gold medal then Australian Michael Rogers, runner-up in 2003, would take the title.

In a transcript of an earlier confession to police investigating drug taking by riders of the Cofidis team and published by the L'Equipe newspaper, Millar reportedly said he had taken the blood booster erythropoietin in 2001 and 2003.

That admission is virtually certain to mean the loss of the gold medal he won in Canada last October.

"Under normal circumstances we cannot use confidential testimony from a police enquiry," an International Cycling Union official said.

"But if Millar confirms what he said, either publicly or at a court hearing, it's not necessary to wait for a verdict in the proceedings."

After the hearing Millar's lawyer, Paul-Albert Iweins, said: "My client was interviewed for two hours by the judge. Mr Millar admitted to taking EPO."

Iweins added: "He accepts fully his actions. In one way that's liberated him. I don't think he took EPO happily.

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