Is Tyler a hero?
‘You won’t fucking believe this,” Armstrong said. “I got popped for EPO.’
The moment when Lance Armstrong gets done for EPO during the Tour of Switzerland in 2001. The moment when Tyler Hamilton thinks the game is up, he’s done for, his professional cycling career down the drain. ‘I was done’.
The Secret Race follows the career of American professional cyclist, Tyler Hamilton. His rise to fame and his fall from grace. From humble beginnings in Marblehead, Massachusetts, to helping Armstrong claim three Tour de Frances, leading his own team in the Tour de France and winning Olympic gold to being caught out doping and being stripped of his awards. It reveals the great lengths Hamilton (and co.) went to along the way, to compete at the highest level.
Tyler Hamilton earned his place on the historic Postal (originally Montgomery Bell) cycling team in 1995 for his work ethic and his commitment to crossing the line. I remember Bradley Wiggins coming off his bike at the 2011 Tour de France with a broken collarbone. If that had been Hamilton, I have no doubt he would have continued on in the style of Tom Simpson whose (supposed) last words were “Put me back on my bike!” As a cyclist, Hamilton wasn’t afraid to fight on. It was only when he tasted the blood in his mouth that he felt as though he was truly cycling. But as well as a determination that propelled them to ride on despite injury and pain, Simpson and Hamilton had something else in common. They were both on drugs. And that’s where The Secret Race gets interesting.
Hamilton doesn’t hold back in his account of how drugs were introduced to him. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow and Hamilton started small with “red eggs”. It was a short step to driving to pharmacies around Europe buying EPO and then eventually flying around the continent donating blood bags. The detail Hamilton provides is amazing. It reads like a “How to” guide: how to make sure you don’t get caught doping, how to measure the number of blood bags you need to use before the race day, how to keep secrets from the people closest to you.
Although I admire Hamilton’s honesty, I have to admit to feeling disturbed at the amount of effort he went to and the people whose trust he broke without blinking an eye. It was confronting to read about how the lies become easy and the cover-ups such a mundane, run-of-the-mill part of Hamilton’s career. Doping was shockingly acceptable in the cycling world that Hamilton and his teammates, including Armstrong, inhabited.
Despite this, Hamilton comes across as a regular guy throughout the story. You don’t envy the choices he had to make but he appears to make them easily. It seems, quite simply, that he was doing what he thought he had to do to compete. His moral obligation to maintain the integrity of the sport never occurred to him, doping was so completely normalised.
Hamilton’s story, shocking as it is, doesn’t come close to Armstrong’s. In The Secret Race, Armstrong comes across as, simultaneously, a cycling machine, a loud mouth, an inspirational and charitable figure, a bully, a millionaire, a private investigator, a gossip and a poker faced 7 time Tour de France winner! A giant of a man; a monster of a man.
Hamilton reveals all his dirty little secrets and backs it all up with quotes and stories and references. With near 300 pages, if Lance’s name isn’t mentioned on one page then it’s definitely mentioned twice on the next. Interestingly, Hamilton doesn’t go on the attack from the get go, he had too much respect for Armstrong at the start of his career. He looked up to him. But then as the story progresses and the two are teamed together, it becomes apparent what kind of man Armstrong is. Armstrong is obsessed with winning. If you fell between him and the finish line, he would have you removed.
Dr Michele Ferrari aka ‘the Myth’ should also get a mention. The man who was an expert trainer as well as a doping ambassador. I got the feeling that if I ever got the chance to meet him, I’d be in the peloton tomorrow.
The most interesting part of the book examines the UCI and the possible cover up of the above mentioned Tour of Switzerland incident. This is the moment when you actually can’t believe what you’re reading. Armstrong says casually that they’ll “…have a meeting with them. It’s all taken care of.” At this point, it pays to remember that Armstrong made two donations totalling $125,000 to the UCI’s anti doping fund.
In the closing chapters, Hamilton is contacted by Jeff Novitzky, the federal doping investigator, and the man who exposed Barry Bonds and Marion Jones. Those final pages make for compelling reading with some truly riveting confrontations with Armstrong relayed.
So is Tyler Hamilton a hero? After finishing The Secret Race and letting it digest, I’m can’t be sure. Is he a man or a shadow of one? A person who should be condemned for his actions or respected for the truth he told?
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone, whether you’re interested in cycling or not. It is an exceptional book, a real page turner that is honest and believable.
My rating: 4.5 stars
What do you think?
Top illustration by Martin Miskelly. Follow him at @miskellay