British cyclist David Millar claims being cleared to compete at the Olympics felt like "taking off the final handcuff".
Millar has been selected for the initial eight-man squad for the men's road race - he became eligible last month after the British Olympic Association were forced to drop their lifetime ban for doping offenders.
The 35-year-old Scot was banned for two years in 2004 after admitting to taking the blood-boosting agent EPO. Since then he has become a leading campaigner against drugs.
He told the Daily Telegraph: "For eight years, I'd been through it all - bans, sanctions, being ostracised, legal problems - and the only thing left to hang over me was my lifetime Olympic ban and I didn't realise how much I hated living with it until it was actually lifted.
"It was like taking off the final handcuff."
Millar's inclusion - like that of sprinter Dwain Chambers, another reformed drug cheat - has been widely questioned with four-time gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy particularly vocal in his support of a lifetime ban from the Games.
Although track racer Hoy has pledged to give his team-mate 100% backing following the squad announcement on Wednesday, Millar appears unimpressed.
He said: "I understand completely his position.
"He's this paragon of perfection. You know, Sir Chris Hoy. He lives in a white world. Perhaps some of us live in a bit more of a grey world where we understand a bit more of what actually goes on.
"But we need people like Chris. Redgrave's another. Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Steve Redgrave: they're white knights."
