January’s Book: The Secret Race
Left to Right: John Inverdale, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle at the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2012.
The people have voted and the results are in. The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle is the first book selected for The Podium.
The Results were as following: The Secret Race – 40%, Feet of the Chameleon – 30% and Resurrection, Twirlymen and Open receiving 10% of the vote.
You can read the introduction to The Secret Race here (click Look Inside). From the very first page, Coyle (who wrote a book on Lance Armstrong called Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force in 2009) draws you with his own fascination with Lance Armstrong and the cycling world.
So what we have here is one of the most talked about cycling books ever. My understanding is Hamilton doesn’t attack Lance Armstrong, it’s the doping culture and the professional cycling world he wants to expose. Hamilton also talks about how he first started taking performance enhancing drugs, his struggle with depression and his famed pain threshold. ‘I’m good at pain. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. In every other area of my life, I’m an average person.’
That’s it from me, no more to discuss on The Secret Race until we’ve all read it. Head on down to your local bookstore and pick up a copy now. Let’s join together on the road in our first peloton. Also, remember to check out The Tour Down Under which runs 20-27 January. http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/
Here’s some additional piece’s of interest from around the net.
From the back cover:
Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s best-liked and top-ranked cyclists – a fierce competitor renowned among his peers for his uncanny endurance and epic tolerance for pain. In 2003 Tour de France, he finished fourth despite breaking his collarbone in the early stages – and grinding eleven of his teeth down to the nerves along the way.
He quickly rose to become Lance Armstrong’s most trusted lieutenant with the U.S. Postal Service team, and a member of his inner circle. For the first three of Armstrong’s record seven Tour de France victories, Hamilton was by Armstrong’s side, clearing his way. But just weeks after Hamilton reached his own personal pinnacle, winning the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, his career came to a sudden, ignominious end. He was found quilty of doping and exiled from the sport.
In the mid-1990s, the advent of a powerful new blood-boosting drug called EPO reshaped the world of cycling, and a relentless, win-at-any-cost ethos took root. Its psychological toll would drive some of the sport’s top performers to a substance abuse, depression, even suicide. Hamilton recounts his own battle with clinical depression, speaks frankly about the agonizing choices that go along with the decision to compete at a world-class level, and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Armstrong.
A journey into the heart of a never-before-seen world, The Secret Race is a riveting, courageous act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France.
Join the Conversation
I want to hear from you, are you joining in? Are you looking forward to what you might learn about Taylor Hamilton, Lance Armstrong and the cycling world? Will you be watching the Tour Down Under?