Why would a
professional cyclist – or any sportsman or woman for that matter – take
performance enhancing drugs? There is a book that may have the answer, although
not quite as you may imagine at first.
Tyler Hamilton's
tell all biography, “The Secret Race”, is fascinating account of what
really went on behind the scenes in the professional peleton from 1995 – 2004.
It is an important book in exposing an entire sporting sub-culture, which could
very well be dubbed a “mafia” of sorts and will hopefully lead to more accounts
of this sordid period of elite-level cycling.
Written in
conjunction with the highly regarded author Daniel Coyle, “The Secret
Race” is actually a sequel to Coyle's 2005 work, the excellent “LanceArmstrong's War”. Coyle embedded himself in the Armstrong camp for an entire
year to get an up close and personal look into the life of the American cycling
icon, compiling a comprehensive account of the professional peleton, it's key
players and idiosyncrasies leading up to the 2004 Tour, all the while retaining
Armstrong as the central theme. Hamilton was one of those key players given his
new-found status a rival of Armstrong's at the time, which was only a few
months before his testing positive for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) at
the Athens Olympics. Although unknown to Coyle at the time, “Lance Armstrong's
War” was the unlikely prequel to “The Secret Race”, which is selling like
wildfire worldwide.
Given that Coyle
was a newbie to the sport of cycling at the time of “LA's War”, his skill and
dedication in providing the mainstream reader with such a comprehensive and
well-crafted insight into the ways of the peleton was all the more commendable,
and quite possibly ahead of his time so to speak. When the news filtered out
that he was working with Hamilton on a new tell all book in the wake of the
latter's confession and subsequent appearance on 60 Minutes, it was clear that
Coyle would stop at nothing to compile a meticulously researched and validated
account of Hamilton's life and times as a pro cyclist.
The result was
“The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping,
Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs”. The narrative is written as Hamilton's
first person voice and is supported by extensive footnotes by Coyle, who
expands on various topics throughout the book. Hamilton's account is
matter-of-fact and like Millar's, a “warts and all” story free of the
rose-tinted theme of many cycling biographies of the past.
While the book is
engrossing and highly educating, the flip side could be this; it is a veritable
“how to” doping guide, much like Willy Voet's "Breaking the Chain". It
also highlights the inadequacies of the doping tests and pretty much gives one
the feeling that yes, it is still very easy to dope. And get away with it. This
may not go down too well in certain quarters but it is the inconvenient truth;
things may be better these days, but to the think the sport of cycling is now
clean would be a mistake. EPO is still widely available and is more widely used
than one might like to admit.
Much of the
book's content has already been covered through the work of the persistent journalists
David Walsh and Pierre Ballester over the years. But you have to take
into account that they were largely dismissed as delusional pariahs at the time
by the US Postal/Discovery media storm troops. Now that it is coming from
Hamilton and other sources inside the sport, people are starting to listen;
David and Pierre don't seem that deluded after all. The material has been
exhaustively and meticulously researched; validated and re-validated over a two
year period leading up to the release of “The Secret Race”. Meticulous may well
be an understatement; Hamilton and Coyle revisited most of the venues where
much of the doping took place, including many remote parts of Europe including
hotel rooms. Parties who were part of Hamilton's story were interviewed giving
“The Secret Race” it's authenticity.
This book is the
antithesis of the politically correct Bicycling Magazine and fence-sitting
SuperCycling commentary. It is a happy, sad, uplifting, gruesome yet objective
tale educating and informing the reader all the same. Winning at all costs
really is winning at all costs, which could finally expunge the all too often
used misnomer of the “level playing field”. A common reaction to “The Secret
Race” and the recent USADA findings is that “they all do it, so the best
cyclist still won”. But doping is an expensive practice, and there is a clear
hierarchy in the world of PEDs. Hamilton felt almost honoured when his then
team doctor invited him to start doping as it almost validated the team's faith
in him as a rider for the future. Crazy as it may seem, access to a private jet
might actually have been the key for Armstrong's seven Tour titles given the
sophistication and sheer magnitude of a systematized doping and training
regimen. Talk to a lower level Eastern European pro riding 5000km/month whilst
living in dubious accommodation in order to feed a family. Level playing field?
Right.
“The Secret Race”
and other recent confessions/judicial inquiries have predictably resulted in an
avalanche of commentary, some good, some bad and some puzzling.
An interesting
piece was that of Scott Mercier, an immensely talented American rider of
the mid-nineties who rode alongside Hamilton in the Postal class of 1997. I remember watching the articulate and friendly Mercier win the 1996
Rapport Toer and Giro del Capo, which ironically included young riders
Alexandre Vinokourov and Sergei Ivanov, both of whom would go onto become top
professionals and become embroiled in doping controversies of their own.
Mercier's piece
on the VeloNews website is engaging, yet puzzling. Here is an immensely
talented rider, who admirably decided to turn his back on the sport at the age
of twenty-nine given his disenchantment with it's more sordid side. But it is
important to remember that Mercier did have options upon retirement, and is now
a successful financial advisor in Colorado. Most other pro riders don't have
such options and are what may be described as working class, with nary a high
school diploma behind them, much less a university education. Most of these
guys are literally riding for their lives.
In his piece, he
calls for the sacking of UCI president Pat McQuaid and a reshuffling of the
sport's governing body. This is understandable, given the recurring evidence of
cover ups and bribes over the years. The UCI's incompetence and “blind-eye”
approach certainly compounded the sport's doping problems over the years and
they should take responsibility.
Yet in an attempt
to hammer home his point, Mercier unfairly gives McQuaid a rap over the
knuckles for his riding the Rapport Toer in 1970s South Africa, calling his
being a part of a fraudulent sporting phenomenon (not verbatim) as somewhat
ironic. Mercier justifies his own victory of the 1996 edition of the South
African national tour as being right and above board, given that the country
was by then ruled by Nelson Mandela as opposed to B.J. Strydom during McQuaid's
participation under the apartheid laws pre-1994. Does this make Mercier a
better person than McQuaid? Should Sean Kelly also be judged for being a
team mate of McQuaid's in that very same tour?
Please spare us
the sanctimonious bullshit, Scott. While I admire your achievements, friendly demeanor, not to mention your strength of character in standing by your
principles, it is perhaps ironic that you finished on the podium in the Tour of
China only months before your victories in the “Rainbow Nation” . Have other
riders ever passed judgement for your competing in a country with a questionable
track record of human rights? Probably
not.
Talking of people
and personalities, Hamilton's book gives great insight to the names behind the
faces, likening the friendships within the peleton to that of soldiers in
combat. His painting a picture of the team that helped Armstrong to victory in
the 1999 Tour de France is perhaps one of the highlights of the book,
especially given their relative underdog status of the time. Doping and other
nefarious dealings aside, the 1999 victory really was a monumental achievement.
To go to Le Tour with two camper vans and a motley crew of riders and staff and
pull of the overall victory is a feat in itself.
Hamilton goes on
to present the reader with a stark insight of life inside the Postal bus, which
makes Michael Barry's 2005 account seem like fiction at best. His
subsequent move to CSC and then Phonak are described in detail, as is his
battle with depression and the ensuing events leading up to and following his
being bust for PEDs during the 2004 Vuelta.
More importantly,
the book shows that nice guys also do bad things. That is perhaps the most
important message of the “The Secret Race”. This should give us, the fan, a
better understanding of the components involved when an athlete tests positive
for a banned substance. They are not necessarily bad people; just caught up in
a world so unique, so cut throat and so far removed from the our everyday
lives.
After reading
“The Secret Race”, you may very well ask yourself the question: why would a
professional cyclist not take performance enhancing drugs?
Chapeu Tyler.
