MIssoula, USA, March 18, 2013 (AFP) – “We were fully delinquents, if not
criminals. If there was one product that we could almost not do without, it
was EPO.”
So says former US pro-racer Tyler Hamilton, one-time US Postal teammate of
Lance Armstrong and likewise caught up in the doping scandals which have
wracked the sport.
Hamilton won 2004 Olympic Gold but his doping saw him stripped of the title
last year and he is now coming to terms with a past he has recanted.
In his book “The Secret Race”, whose French version is being released in
France this week, Hamilton explained in detail how riders would take
performance-enhancing drug EPO on the Tour de France from a delivery man
hiding among fans.
“He spent two and a half weeks on the road, kind of camping out most of the
time, staying close by, waiting for the call or the text message.”
In an interview with AFPTV, Hamilton insisted it was Armstrong who ensured
the doping was kept under wraps.
Hamilton said the message was: “This river is going this way. Don’t try to
swim up stream. You’d better swim the same way Lance Armstrong is swimming or
– if not, watch your back.
“There is the omerta, the code of silence. You don’t talk. You don’t, you
don’t, you just don’t go that way, you don’t go there. If you do, your career
is over.”
Armstrong has since confessed to being a drug cheat, but has not admitted
to playing a role in other riders’ doping.
Hamilton opened up on the issue in mid-2011, a year after disgraced former
Tour de France champion Floyd Landis came clean on his own doping
misdemeanors.
He told the US doping agency USADA what he knew and then wrote his book,
shedding light on Armstrong, who had been a team mate on three of the latter’s
seven Tour de France wins between, those three coming between 1999 and 2001.
The 42-year-old now puts together training programs for amateur cyclists.
Armstrong meanwhile faces lawsuits spawned by his admission to chat host
Oprah Winfrey in January that he had doped and that all seven of his Tour de
France victories were fueled by banned drugs.
Last October, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour titles as well as all
other results from August 1998 and banned for life after USADA determined he
was the key figure in a sophisticated doping program on his US Postal
Service team.
He told Winfrey he used a combination of blood-doping transfusions,
blood-boosting EPO and testosterone throughout his career.
Hamilton and Armstrong had earlier had an angry exchange at a restaurant in
Aspen when the latter hit out at Hamilton for his allegations, only ultimately
to admit publicly his wrongdoing.
Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey “came as a surprise to Hamilton – but he
saw it in a positive light.
“A big Tour de France champion is admitting to cheating. But it’s the
truth, it’s the reality. I think the sport will gain a lot from it in the
future.”
