Millar will compete for Scotland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games

David Millar believes cycling has gone from being one of the sports worst affected by doping to leading the fight against performance-enhancing drugs.

Millar, 32, wasthis week cleared to take part in the 2010 Commonwealth Games for Scotland.

And he said of his sport: "It's cleaner than it's ever been.

"In a decade, we have gone from being probably what was one of the dirtiest professional sports to the sport that is at the vanguard of anti-doping."

Millar was banned for two years in 2004 and stripped of his 2003 world time trial title after admitting using the blood booster EPO but has now become a prominent anti-doping spokesman.

Speaking about the period before his ban, he told BBC Radio 5 live: "My sport was a different sport to what it is now.

"It was a dirty, fairly dark place for quite a few years. I got very much wrapped up in that for a short period of time and it was almost my compete downfall."

Doping in cycling was first exposed on a major scale during the 1998 Tour de France.

But the issue went on to dog the sport's biggest race in 2006, when winner Floyd Landis was disqualified, and 2007, when the race leader Michael Rasmussen, was removed by his team.

"I am responsible for my actions but I also know it was preventable," said Millar of his involvement in doping.

"I know that a younger version of me wouldn't have done it in a different sport. If [the younger Millar] was in the sport today it wouldn't have happened but from turning professional at 19 I was confronted with room-mates injecting themselves.

"As idealistic as you are, after four or five years of that you do eventually give in, especially when the management has semi-endorsed it."

Despite quarrelling between major events and cycling's world governing body the UCI, the sport has recently led the way in adopting initiatives from the World Anti-Doping Association.

"We have introduced some of the most advanced anti-doping methods, from bringing in the 'whereabouts' system early on, internal testing programmes for teams and the biological passport," said Millar.

Millar is now set to compete for Scotland for the first time in a Commonwealth Games, in Delhi next October.

And the Malta-born cyclist refused to rule out the prospect of taking part at London 2012, although the British Olympic Association's ban still stands.

"It was an appeal we put in because we felt the circumstances, the time that's passed and the work I've done since merits my being able to take part," he added.

"I'm not resigned to anything. My biggest objective at the moment is the Commonwealth Games and I want to be at my best come October for that."

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