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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@Leroy You have made some great points, but even if USADAs efforts were directed by a personal vendetta on Tygart's part and they meant that resources were tied up that could have gone elsewhere, I still think it had to be done. I hate seeing cycling dragged through this, especially as it's in large part due to a guy I've been a fan of for literally twenty years, but I still think that in the end the pain will be worth it.
I sure hope so, anyway...
Yes, I think you've all made some good points. I do agree with Oli that the USADA investigation had to be done. It's like cutting out a cancerous growth: painful but necessary. Lance would have to agree with that. And by definition it focused on US Postal. But I feel its not enough: the UCI need to show leadership and grip this, hence my (admittedly rose tinted) view that a Truth and Reconcilliation approach is what's needed: to allow riders to come forward, make admissions (instead of repeating more and more unlikely denials), with limited sanctions to help draw a line under it. I also don't think sacking riders like levi for 10 year old misdemeanours helps, because it reinforces the behaviour of omertà : better to keep schtum and hope not to get caught than admit to doping and get a career ending ban...
But I also agree with much of what Leroy says: Lance didn't start the fire, its been burning since the birth of pro-cycling and continued to burn after his retirement. Which isn't in any way to excuse him, just to provide context. All the riders who doped: from Tommy Simpson in the 60's with amphetamines through Merckx (who iirc had a three positive tests during his career) to the advent of EPO use in the early 90's to Riis in '96 and Ullrich in '97 to Festina, Virenque, Pantani, Millar, all the riders in the Puerto affair, Contador, Frank Schleck: ALL those riders (and those who rode the Classics, the Giro and Vuelta and a hundred other races Lance never raced in and raced for teams that he wasn't the leader of) they made a conscious positive *choice* to dope. So he's maybe the worst example of a bully and a cheat, but unfortunately I seem him as only one of many in a sad and tawdry continuum that would have continued to thrive with or without him. And whilst, as I said above, I'm prepared to understand, forgive and move on, that broad context means I take with a pinch of salt all the "I had no choice" testimonies: they are understandable, but in my view too easy an explanation. Those guys need to own up and take personal responsibility for the choices they made. At the risk of repeating myself, that's the path to atonement and redemption.
All just some of my own humble opinions!
But chaps. One thing. Lets argue and debate and agree to disagree. Or even disagree to disagree. But leave the name calling out of it, for Merckx's sake! We're not 8 year old girls in the playground anymore! That said, sometimes things just have to be taken outside. And whilst I'm an infrequent visitor these days, I'm sure there is a tried and tested protocol for dispute resolution between Velominati: a duel at dawn, armed with nothing more than mini-pumps and CO2 cannisters, clad only in bib shorts, with only blows to the head allowed until one or both is beaten to a bloody pulp: may the best man win!
lance was dirty since his first year with Motorola. I had no illusions of the 90s and Lance era peloton since reading Lance to Landis. Armstrong initiated the drug use in his own career. He was the guy that was looking for what the Euros were using to beat him. He was already a Tri champ and could not deal with being just another rider. There was nothing spetacluar about his physiology, he was never seen as a tour contender, his henchmen and handlers went on about his post cancer weight loss, blah, blah - all false if you do the research. Under Johan, an equally corrupt douchebag and coached by CC an other corrupt dicklicker, he excelled as a science experiment in pharmacology and transfusions. Read the earlier crap on him again. And to have guys like Danielson and david z, forced to dope, to get with the program or else is thretening a man's income and livelihood. complete douchery. to not see that a young athlete being threatened into doping by the team captain and sports director as serious threat to said youbg athlete it myopic at best and ignorant at the worst. the z man tried to fake doping for christ sake and danielson would avoid the needles or just forget, but johan and lance would never forget! and kept tabs on all of the team, keeping them silent as a result too. i have no illusions to la and jb's ability to ensure a guy that was not a team player would get sorted out. ask tyler how he got caught.
And as for the whole systemic description, that's exactly what I thought that team was doing. only a few other teams had that type of cash after festina
Rant done
Staying out of the above wang-slanging contest; here is a story an employee at my LBS told me today: he had a buddy who freaking loved (LOVED!) Lance. Guy bought the "limited edition Lance-just-won-the tour Madone" at like "10 grand each". This poor guy goes on to decorate his living room with these collectible madones investing (wasting, perhaps better now) 10's of thousands of dollars on the bikes/the living room display. Worst part though...he named his oldest son Lance....ouch.
@Leroy
You are on - justice will be done ( yeee haaaa ) : only a matter of time before UCI officials past and present testify against him in return for amnesty of their own from impending fallout - their testimony combined with forensic analysis of the financial transactions involving Ferrari etc..... he'll get his just desserts and will be made an example of.
@graham d.m.
Ouch does not describe it! I was a fan after win 3. But sometime after then, maybe when LeMan started to be "crazy," I was starting to have my doubts. I still wanted to see an american reach 5, so I watched and cheered, but after that it was enough for me. When Landis screwed up his own program and got caught, the writing was on the wall. I am happy my first born was not a boy. I held one of those gold leaf madones in my hands. It was being built for NHL enforcer and all around nice guy, George Leroque. It was nice, but now, Trek is dead to me.
This article is a couple of years old, but may give some insight on young Phinney:
http://www.statesman.com/news/sports/phinney-americas-next-great-cyclist/nRwTH/
@smithers
I'm curious what exactly you think he would be charged with? Doping in sports is not a criminal offense in the US so that's out... Neither is buying doping products or "training advice"... and, as far as I'm aware, anything that isn't criminalized under US law isn't covered in any of the US extradition treaties so even if a foreign court took the extraordinary step of convicting him, he's safe as long as he doesn't willingly travel to that country again. He would essentially have to be charged with fraud or witness intimdation, which are difficult to prove at best and he would almost certainly have the legal firepower to beat down any charges... Particularly given that the Feds already dropped one such case. I expect he'll see (and likely lose) civil cases from companies like SCA and possibly some individuals as well but I just don't see criminal charges, however well-deserved they may be, as being likely.
If you really want to take me up on the bet though, shoot me an email at troy.browning@gmail.com and we'll sort out the specifics.
@niksch
Nice find, that was a good read.
@Leroy
I think the talk of prosecution surrounds possible charges of purgery. Lance had at one point claimed (under oath) that he had no ongoing professional relationship with Ferrari (the doping doctor). Payments tracked from his bank accounts clearly lay a paper and funding trail to Ferraris company. As such he knowingly lied under oath. I suspect the reason he refused to defend the charges from the USADA under abitration is that the whole process would yet again be under oath and he would like have to continue to purger himself or admit he had already done so....this approach feels a bit like getting Al Capone on tax charges but it will be interesting to see how it unfolds...