Review: The Secret Race

I've waited a long time to weigh in on what BikeSnob has dubbed Shitstorm 2012.  I wanted to see how things would pan out before offering my opinions about Lance Armstrong's doping scandal, plus I've been busy with other things (like growing a person in my abdomen).

Ultimately, the whole thing has been pretty confusing, both mentally and emotionally.  Bruce and I got into cycling a few years ago, at a time when Bruce's father was sick with terminal cancer.  Understandably, Lance Armstrong was his hero - an amazing, successful cyclist who had beaten cancer and created Livestrong to support others dealing with the disease.  We had yellow bracelets, Livestrong gear, and even Bruce's Madone Project One was a homage to Lance:

Yes, it's still winter here

Of course, when the accusations started to get serious, we believed everything he said.  And why wouldn't we?  We weren't cycling fans during his Tour years.  We didn't know Tyler Hamilton or any of the other racers from that era from a hole in the wall.  It looked a lot like they were just throwing Lance under the bus to save their own hides.

Even after the Oprah interview, I continued to defend Lance.  Who gives a shit if he doped - everyone was doing it back then and he still beat them.  Plus, what non-cyclists don't understand is just how much strategy and teamwork goes into winning a big race like the TDF.  It takes a lot more than pure wattage to win, and Lance managed to do so repeatedly against the best cyclists in the world.

The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France - Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at all Costs by Armstrong's former teammate Tyler Hamilton shows a very different side of the story.  To be frank, Hamilton paints Armstrong as a big douchebag.  If Hamilton is being honest, Lance is every bit the manipulative, over-competitive bully the media has made him out to be.  Reading this book has made it very difficult to view Lance in a positive light.

However, for me the discussion of Lance Armstrong's attributes was not the most interesting part of the book.  Rather, I found it fascinating to read about Tyler Hamilton's journey and the very real doping culture of professional cycling.

Hamilton raced clean for the first three years of his cycling career.  Like many cyclists, he was faced with a decision - dope or go home.  The use of performance enhancers was so prevalent in the mid to late 90s that clean racers just couldn't compete.  Hamilton chose to compete, and over time he became a team leader in his own right and a serious threat to Lance's supremacy.  Eventually, he was unlucky enough to get caught, after a blood test revealed that he had someone else's blood in his body (like, ICK).

The main forms of performance enhancement used at the time, according to Hamilton, were testosterone, EPO, and blood transfusions.  He claims that these methods are not so much for improving athletic ability, but work by preventing the loss of performance that occurs during long races (like the 3-week Tour de France).  Race organizers were unable to detect injected EPO because the body produces it naturally, so they regulated it's use by disqualifying racers with a hematocrit measuring over 50.  The trick was to get your hematocrit up over your natural level without crossing the threshold.  This allowed one's blood to carry more oxygen to the muscles.  A blood transfusion works on the same principle - that having more red blood cells allows for more oxygenation and stronger performance over long periods.  So now I know more about doping than I ever wanted to.

Hamilton says they never felt like they were cheating because everyone in the peloton was doing it.  The co-author, Daniel Coyle, adds the statement that these methods do not truly "level the playing field" because each athlete responds to them differently (footnote, page 62).  This strikes me as a stupid argument.  As far as I know, most athletes are not equal to start with, having different genes, different training and dietary regimes, and different equipment.  People don't participate in sports based on the premise that everything is equal - if they did, there wouldn't be a winner.

However, this makes me wonder about the ways society perceives doping.  Is it really cheating?  After all, it's not cheating to diet to the point of anorexia, to eat high energy foods, or to sleep in an altitude tent.  I think there's a very fuzzy line between acceptable race preparation and cheating, and where that line falls is usually determined by culture rather than science.  Testosterone and EPO are produced naturally by the body.  A blood transfusion is re-inserting blood produced by one's own bone marrow (unless the doctor mixes up the bags, in which case GET AN AIDS TEST).  Point being, we do things to alter our physiology all the time.  Sometimes it's considered cheating.  Sometimes it's not.

My favourite cyclist, Jens Voigt, gets exactly one mention in the book, on page 236.  Jens has written publicly about Shitstorm 2012, maintaining that he has never doped.  Sadly, Hamilton implies otherwise.  When Hamilton returned to racing after his suspension, he was snubbed by Jens in the peloton.  "I tried not to take it personally.  Maybe Jens was just afraid of being associated with me.  Maybe I was an unwelcome reminder of what might happen to him if he got popped."  I guess time will tell.

Just look how cool this guy is!

Overall, I'm giving the book 4 stars out of 5.  There is really interesting stuff here, both for die-hard cycling fans and those who are curious about what Lance is really like.  I will add that although the story has a ring of truth to it, I'm not quite prepared to accept all of its revelations as fact.  It's not outside the realm of possibility that Tyler Hamilton's version of events is slanted to favour Tyler Hamilton.  Nonetheless, it was really interesting and quite well-written.

Tyler Hamilton on 60 Minutes (his hair is wavy like McDreamy's!)