I must admit to not having read most of the cycling memoirs in the Works. I may eventually but the local public library doesn’t carry any of them and never will so I’ll have to buy them or ask Frank to tote everything he has to Hawaii. I did get off my wallet and buy these two and it was money well spent. David Millar and Tyler Hamilton have produced two excellent cycling books, parallel stories in very general terms and times. The contrast of how two people in similar straits handle the truth and the divergent roads it puts them on is compelling.
Doping in professional cycling is still secretive enough that it is best told from someone all the way on the inside. Journalists will be lied to by cyclists. Federal grand juries do better at getting the truth but we usually don’t hear it. Cyclists who lived the lie and need to unburden themselves make a good conduit. I can’t begin to explain it as well as Tyler or David did; their inner world of professional cycling is nothing we hear much about. In the 1990s it was the wild west where the law was absent. Spanish “doctors”, syringes and mini-centrifuges ruled the day. It’s such a huge subject, too interwoven with passion and pressure, so much grey area. For a person like me who likes to talk about doping in black and white, I’ve learned how institutionalized and insidious it was (past tense, I hope). It’s not so simple. It’s tragic. To feed the young ambitious athlete into a system where there is no choice but to accept the drug system is criminal. When money is at stake and the UCI is complicit, as is team management, those are some criminals.
Racing Through the Dark-by David Millar. I’ll also admit to being a long time admirer of David Millar. He has always been well- spoken and not afraid to confront, two qualities I admire and personally lack, but they make a good writer. Millar is a military brat who found his cycling talent in the 10 mile British time trial club races. He ended up living his dream, riding on the Cofidis team, France’s well- funded but dysfunctional squad. He spent his first few years with Cofidis riding clean, yet watching how others “prepared”.
“In my youthful exuberance, I was telling anybody who would listen that I’d won in De Panne and broken the course record with a hematocrit of only 40 percent. I went to see Casagrande and his roommate, whom I refer to as L’Équipier (the teammate), so that I could show Casagrande the test results.
I stood there, a big grin on my face, expecting Casagrande to congratulate me and say something morale boosting. But he didn’t. After a pause, he handed the results back to me and then turned to speak to his roommate in Italian.
“Perché non é a cinquate?” Casagrande asked L’Équipier, puzzled, Why isn’t he at fifty?
No one talked about doping and no one talked about not doping. Eventually, after VDB self-destructed and Casagrande was busted, Millar became a team leader. And with that mantle came the responsibility to produce results, be a professional. And eventually he was implicated by a teammate, evidence was found, he was out of cycling, deeply in debt, and drinking his way to the bottom.
For some interesting video here is a recent Spanish documentary from the inner ring.
The Secret Race-by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle. Tyler Hamilton and I grew up in the same end of Massachusetts, he went to the same prep school @rob and I dropped out of, so I always felt slightly connected to him. So I was a fan boy and stood by his fantastic excuses for too long.
The whole wretched story of doping in cycling is right here. Tyler Hamilton cheated and lied for so long, it took until 2011 before he could tell his parents the truth. And despite his decade of lying, this book rings true. His reward was getting out from under the lie. I think he would have written the book for free just for the unburdening. He states many times the lightness of being after testimony and though he knows it’s very unlikely, hopes Lance can feel the same lightness that comes from telling the truth. This book is Tyler Hamilton’s story but it is closely linked to part of the Armstrong saga.
Like Millar, Hamilton was unaware of systemic drug use until he had joined the professional ranks. US Postal drugs were at first team- provided and paid for. Once you proved yourself as one of the best riders on the team, as someone who could help Lance win the Tour, you earned the right to use EPO. It is fascinating reading, it’s horrifying, it’s depressing. Most unsettling is Lance Armstrong’s behavior. There are many revelations regarding Armstrong’s psychotic need to win. I’ll share just this one.
Tyler was eased out of US Postal because he was too strong a rider and perceived as a threat to Armstrong. So Tyler left and signed with Phonak in 2004. There was a time trial up Mont Ventoux in the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré weeks before the Tour de France. Tyler beat Lance in the TT. Later during the Tour, Floyd Landis, who was still riding for US Postal rode along side Tyler.
“You need to know something”
I pulled in closer. Floyd’s Mennonite conscience was bothering him.
“Lance called the UCI on you,” he said. “He called Hien, after Ventoux. Said you guys and Mayo were on some new shit, told Hien to get on you. He knew they’d call call you in. He’s been talking shit nonstop. And I think it’s right that you know.”
This little story is amazing for many different reasons and the only good one is Floyd Landis telling it to Tyler. I’m guilty of saying some negative things about Floyd, mostly because he was such an idiot liar. But at a point, when he has nothing to gain and he has lost everything else and he starts telling the truth, he gains back my respect, just like Tyler Hamilton has.
I ended up reading these books one right after the other. As I said before, I recommend them both. David Millar is a better writer. He actually has more demons to battle than Hamilton so his story of redemption is inspiring. Tyler Hamilton’s story is more depraved (in a doping sense) but both books are important. A lot of people in cycling are now admitting to past deeds in very unspecific terms. These two authors are both shining lights into some dark corners and making the inevitability of drug use in cycling more human and understandable. Also, in reading these books back to back, it highlights the contrast in how these two people dealt with their fates.
Both had the bad luck to be nearly singled out as dopers when a large percent of the riders were dopers. Millar realized it was the doping that killed his passion for even riding a bike. He took no joy in his EPO-assisted victories, only a temporary satisfaction that the task at hand was completed. He decided to come clean and to become an advocate for clean racing and changing the corrupt system.
Hamilton could not admit to anyone but his wife (who already knew) that he had been a cheat. His lie was so crushing he couldn’t even see a way out. He then spent all his money and energy protecting the lie for years, for nothing, obviously. It was the threat of perjury in that finally broke open the dam. It’s a cruel lesson to learn; the truth will set you free, even if it takes forever.
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@TommyTubolare
@Mikael Liddy
I was a bit "meh" too. Merely a summary of what was contained in the USADA testimonies, Hamilton's book, etc. Whilst it was a bit interesting to see Armstrong in action in the deposition, the transcript of the testimony was in the USADA material.
Conclusions: Armstrong is a COTHO, Betsy Andreu is pretty sexy, and Phil Liggett could be the stupidest most gullible man on the planet.
I suppose it was inevitable. Levi will be looking for a new team.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/10/news/omega-pharma-terminates-leipheimers-contract_261636
@TommyTubolare
Watched a bit of it. The words from COTHO at the beginning are quite incredible now.
Apparently I'm the only person in the world who could care less about the whole USADA case... Maybe it's that I came the realization that Lance (and pretty much everyone else) was hopped up on Rocket Fuel and Gorilla hormones a decade ago but I still think Lance is a giant douchebag and a great champion. I don't find it shocking at all that cheating is sophisticated in million dollar sports, whether it's the "cream" and the "clear" of BALCO fame or Lance intimidating people who spoke out against him. I don't see his statements as shocking or even slightly incredible... What would you expect him to say? "Hey kids, you should dope just like me". If you read the testimony from the witnesses, pretty much to a man they all pretty clearly say that the majority of the peloton was doped and that they all felt that they had to cheat to make it... yet they make it out to be that Lance invented doping. Lance just faced the same dillema they all did but embraced it fully and completely mastered the process. That Lance cheated 'better' than the rest isn't surprising. He's a calculating madman on the bike... But, if we're honest with ourselves, just avoiding an untimely flat or crash in that many Tours is impressive... and as far as I'm aware, there's no anti-crashing or anti-badpositioninthepeloton dope availalbe?
Crucify the sport, crucify the era, crucify the poor managment structure that let it all happen... but crucifying Lance for doing what we all know pretty much everyone was doing for really nothing more than doing it more effectively is flat out silly.
Funny, after reading Hamilton's book, I watched The Road to Paris (cool movie, despite all the COTHOing). Hamilton said that Pharmy's favorite saying was, "Whatever you're doing, those motherfuckers are doing more." Oddly, this Taoist saying is flashed when the movie starts.
Somehow the original is more poetic than Armstrongs take on it.
@Leroy
As a massive Armstrong fan (and apologist) until the release of the Reasoned Decision last week, the thing that really turned me was the enabling and pushing of drugs onto the younger riders. Naively, I always looked at the doping as either an individual decision, one that came out of mutual agreement, or even peer pressure among consenting adults. What never occurred to me was that heavy pressure and threats were being used to coerce young riders who wanted to stay clean to take up a doping programme. If I ever found out someone was forcing one of my sons to take drugs against their will I don't think I could be responsible for my actions, and I feel about this the same way.
@frank Daniel Friebe talks about Eddy having exactly the same philosophy in the opening stages of the '69 tour when he was suffering from the effects of an "enforced break" from racing.
@Oli exactly. +1 to everything you've said.
Agree with much of what you say Leroy.
Reading some of the reports one could be forgiven for thinking that Lance invented EPO and personally administered it by force to the entire peleton. Yes he was a ruthless operator. But it's far too easy for riders of that generation to imply that they had no choice. I'm sorry, but they did. Otherwise I'll have to invoke Godwin's Rule to prove my point. I really don't want to take this fine site down that route.
Yes it would have taken courage. Yes it would have put their careers at risk. Which I recognise isn't easy. But please, don't give me the "I had no choice" sob stories. By all means explain the context. But, those riders have to take personal responsibility for their actions. That's the path to atonement and redemption. (Which Millar has done admirably)
The other aspect of the reporting that bothers me is the USADA assertion that US Postal were significantly more advanced than other teams in the doping programs. Maybe they were ahead of the others, but given that they only investigated US Postal, how do they know what other teams were doing?
Have they forgotten Festina? What were Team Telekom doing? Not riding on bread and water that's for sure, given the admissions of EPO use in the 90's by many riders on that team including Zabel, Riis and Ullrich and the sequence of failed tests by Telekom riders all the way to Sinkewitz in 2007.
Which brings me to some of the discussion above. Unfortunately I'm now struggling to believe *any* rider who rode and won races in that era claiming that he didn't dope. Look, I love Jens as much as the next man: I want to believe his repeated denials, but I'm losing respect for him the more I hear them.
Which is why I do think a 'truth and reconcillation' approach is the right way to go: give the opportunity for admission, with limited penalties and no re-writing of palmares. Draw a line under it and move on.
Because I am convinced that the riding now is cleaner than it was. Analysis of the times taken to ride up climbs up Alpe d'Huez (as mentioned above) and other climbs suggest power outputs in terms of watts/kg and implied VO2 max levels that are lower than 10 years ago and are now within believable physiological parameters. Which doesn't mean there isn't doping still going on, but surely less of it. So I'm also more optimistic about Wiggins being clean than Frank is ...!
Ken
@Oli I can see where you're coming from, and I've admittedly not read the entire "reasoned decision" so I might not have all the info, but I don't see where Lance or Johan or anyone else held some rookie down and shoved a needle in their arm. Telling someone "if you want to be a pro on this team, then you're going to need to follow our 'medical advice'" isn't the same as forcing someone to do something against their will as I see it. It's leaving the choice to them... granted, the choice between continuing to live your dream while riding under the needle or packing it and calling it quits on a dream you've chased since childhood is an incredibly hard choice to make but it's still a choice. I also think it's disingenous to suggest that US Postal was massively different from other teams. They may have been the most effective and most sophisticated but I think we're kidding ourselves if we believe that these riders wouldn't have been faced with the same choices at other teams.
Another thing that I keep in mind is that, at some point, Lance was that young kid coming up clean who was forced to make that choice as well... We can demonize him now because he is an asshole on so many personal levels but Lance didn't invent doping. Any dream crushing decision that any cyclist had to make, Lance at some point had to make that same decision. Lance and any one of these other guys could have (and some apparently did) decided that they weren't willing to do drugs to be professional. Looking back now and blaming Lance for the choices they made just seems a bit of a cop-out to me. Also, if the peloton was as doped as everything suggests it was, then really it wasn't much of a choice for team managment either. We can be a clean second tier team or we can organize our doping just like we organize our training and traveling and be a top level competitor... With millions on the line, I'm just not shocked that teams went full-in on the doping game.
I also think it diminishes the difficulty of cycling to suggest that doping made any of these guys... I won't lie for a second, if all it took to be a pro cyclist was some EPO and testosterone, I'd be calling Dr Ferrari right now. But just like dudes with 30" biceps don't get jacked from taking steroids and sitting around, none of these guys went from scrubs to superstars thanks to just EPO.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the whole reality of that era of cycling was pretty much disgusting... I just don't see Lance as being any more or less disgusting or more or less culpable than the rest of the bunch. I think he's right in saying that it was a witch hunt to catch him. I don't for a second question his guilt but, when you give a half dozen slaps on the wrist and blow off conducting doping controls at the AToC two years in a row all to devote resources to get one man, you're clearly not as interested in ensuring cycling is a clean sport today as you are in catching Lance.