So you think that all dopers are just cheats who have no idea how to behave in a sporting environment? Think again and pick up Tyler Hamilton’s The Secret Race. Especially if you’re an inconsistent reader and you’ve been having trouble getting around to finishing a book that was not your course notes or your daily newspaper lately. This will cure you. You’ll find yourself dragged into the darkest meanders of the cycling world. If you’re a cycling fan and used to watch the seemingly superhuman feats accomplished by Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich and their generation, this book is for you. You’ll relive these riders’ achievements through Hamilton’s eyes with a mixture of awe, disgust and (especially) disbelief. If you don’t have the slightest clue about cycling, this book is also for you. Indeed, it reads like spy fiction littered with dramatic moments. Let me rephrase: the whole book is a dramatic moment that doesn’t let up until you breathlessly reach the last stage – sorry, the last page.
After reading these brilliantly written memoirs, you will feel an urge to watch the Armstrong confession or Hamilton’s latest interviews. Whatever you do, don’t do that before reading the book. Indeed, and he says it himself (although in more neutral terms), Hamilton is an appallingly bad speaker and he therefore does his cause few favors by defending it orally. Watching him answer a journalist’s questions makes you desperately want to reach out and help him find his words more quickly. However, with Daniel Coyle’s help, he manages to turn these embarrassingly clumsy words into the yellow jersey of narratives.
Don’t get me wrong, doping is and will always be cheating and coming up with the truth (yes, I know what you’re thinking, is that even the truth?) after lying consistently for years doesn’t erase anything. However, those of you who are prone to preemptive criticism, please give Hamilton a chance to defend himself before you throw his unopened book into the patented liars drawer. While racing through the chapters of this compelling page-turner as if the whole Tour de France peloton was on your heels, not only will you discover what’s going on behind the scenes, how important « training » and « therapy » are and that the protagonist of every main event is a guy called Edgar (not to mention Ferrari, Ufe and Nick) but you’ll also realize that it’s a little too easy to be harshly critical of these guys climbing mountains on their bikes « loaded to the gills » (the guys, not the bikes) when sitting comfortably on your couch. Indeed, with a little more insight (duly provided by Hamilton) into the doping culture and the incredible omertà that have prevailed since the 1990s, you might want to cut Tyler, Floyd & Co. some slack. They were no saints, far from it, but they were no criminal masterminds either. Except maybe one. Lance Armstrong is depicted by his ex-lieutenant as the ultimate manipulative douchebag and this is one of the aspects that make for a riveting read.
No, Tyler Hamilton doesn’t hesitate to name names. No, this book is « not normal », as Lance would have it. But yes, most of these Tour contenders were just regular guys minding their own business before getting caught in the (largely UCI-sanctioned) system. That’s why, ultimately, I don’t think I’d be crossing the Rubicon of human decency if I left you with this crucial question: what would you do? But hey, read the book before answering.
Picture: By Matt Knoth, from Flickr (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Pardon my French 