The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDThe Secret Race is a definitive look at the world of professional cycling—and the doping issue surrounding this sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong—by former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle. Over the course of two years, Coyle conducted more than two hundred hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke candidly with numerous teammates, rivals, a

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDThe Secret Race is a definitive look at the world of professional cycling—and the doping issue surrounding this sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong—by former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle.   Over the course of two years, Coyle conducted more than two hundred hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke candidly with numerous teammates, rivals, and friends. The result is an explosive book that takes us, for the first time, deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to succeed that they would do anything—and take any risk, physical, mental, or moral—to gain the edge they need to win.   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 the 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 started his career with the U.S. Postal Service team in the 1990s and quickly rose to become Lance Armstrong’s most trusted lieutenant, 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 guilty of doping and exiled from the sport.   From the exhilaration of his early, naïve days in the peloton, Hamilton chronicles his ascent to the uppermost reaches of this unforgiving 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 many of the sport’s top performers to substance abuse, depression, even suicide. For the first time ever, 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 Lance 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.From the Hardcover edition.

Little known ex-professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton stands - or more accurately, fell - in the perfect position to detail clandestine goings on during the Lance Armstrong era of professional cycling. As we now know Armstrong wields an impressive

Little known ex-professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton stands - or more accurately, fell - in the perfect position to detail clandestine goings on during the Lance Armstrong era of professional cycling. As we now know Armstrong wields an impressive talent for producing convincing fictions about himself and his actions so much so, he could not truly come clean even if he had a mind to. Hamilton's access to Armstrong couples with his once enthusiastic embrace of all the same performance enhancing techniques to produce a credible tale.

And what a tale. Armstrong and the Postal Service Team of the late 90's early 00's not only engaged in truly butt-clenching unpleasant blood doping programs and wild forays into experimental better cycling through chemistry, they also had to plan and execute multinational schemes that would have made James Bond's head spin. Apartments in Monaco had to be quietly leased, perfectly timed furtive blood transplant and refrigeration equipment procured and manned, black-clad motorcyclists delivering drugs had to be recruited and hushed and highest-level governing body officials bribed or otherwise turned. Even if you don't give a fig about Armstrong the book still plays like a good heist movie.

That all of this sneaking was carried out and that Armstrong's vicious defense of his innocence demolished careers and reputations in its wake was done simply to win bicycle races makes the book more of a sociological study as much as a psychological one. Hamiliton does an excellent job of laying out his case that Armstrong, himself and other Postal Service team members faced either cheating or leaving the professional cycling profession. You understand why he and others take the former but you also understand why certain other riders profiled in the book took the latter. Which would you have done? You might not feel as certain you would have ridden the high road once you finish the book.

In short, a timely topic and a crackling good story even if the writing is often repetitive (Hamilton states that he trained harder than he ever has in his life on so many occasions you begin to imagine you are reading it at the end of each paragraph).