EASY RIDER
The man who knoked down Lance Armstrong
Tyler takes the high road; I don’t. Lance Armstrong is a world-class athlete, and a first-class asshole — Tyler Hamilton’s father, Bill (pictured)
FOR a man who rode eight Tours de France, Tyler Hamilton has surprisingly little interest in the achievements of the current peloton.
“I don’t watch [the Tour]. I might glance at the results, but I don’t watch it every day,” says the former professional cyclist, who was in South Africa this week to speak at the Discovery Vitality Summit in Sandton.
“I’ve taken a few steps back from it. I’m a coach now; I train weekend warriors. I was a cyclist. I’m no longer a cyclist.”
Hamilton fell out of love with the sport long before it fell out of love with him.
The disillusionment had little to do with the physical toll the grand tours took — having to lose more than 10kg off his already slim frame to be able to ride up the big mountains or the agony of riding with broken bones to complete races.
It was the knowledge that he was cheating — and lying about it to those he holds dear — that eroded his passion.
Hamilton’s admission of the systematic doping he participated in during his career was what eventually brought down Lance Armstrong.
The man who wore yellow on the Champs Elysee seven times had bullied teammates into a culture of “omerta” and for years sued anyone who claimed he had used performanceenhancing drugs.
But when Hamilton, a fellow American and teammate during the first three Tour victories, came clean about his doping, Armstrong’s denials were no longer sustainable.
Hamilton had been accused of doping before — most notably after the 2004 Olympics, where he won the individual time trial gold medal (later voluntarily returned and then officially stripped of by the IOC) — and served a two-year drug ban following a positive test at the Vuelta a Espana.
He retired from cycling in 2009 after receiving an eight-year suspension (because it was a second offence) for a banned substance in a herbal medication — something he was taking, somewhat ironically, to combat the chronic depression that had been exacerbated by his interior conflict over doping.
He is honest enough to admit he owned up only when cornered by the official investigation last year. But, once he started talking, he told the whole truth.
He named names, giving investigators the dates and the places that allowed them to build a very strong case against Armstrong.
And he co-wrote a book, The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs, with Daniel Coyle, that explained how the doping operation was run.
But he still finds it quite difficult to speak openly against a man he once regarded as a friend, who cut him dead once he thought Hamilton was no longer a team player.
No one has challenged Hamilton’s assertions about doping, but few have been willing to join him in openly talking about it.
“There’s still the fraternity, the code of silence. What does that solve? But I can understand. I’ve been telling the truth for a year now, but it’s still hard. Being truthful about a friend, or someone close to you in the past, is difficult.
“We went through a lot of things together — the good, the bad and the ugly. We took a lot of risks, which I’m not sure any of us really liked — no one really likes doping — but we all felt like we had to do it. Our reality was all a bit twisted.”
His father, Bill, who accompanied him to South Africa, is not as reticent.
“Tyler takes the high road; I don’t,” says Bill Hamilton.
“Lance Armstrong is a worldclass athlete and a first-class asshole.”
Bill believes, like many do, that had there been a level playing field, with the entire peloton racing clean, Armstrong would have won anyway — because he was the best.
“But he’s a bully, and he had to win at all costs.”