Hamilton is currently immersed in depositions hearings against Armstrong, his US Postal Service team and the UCI (cycling’s international governing body) and was in New Zealand to speak at a Drug Free Sport New Zealand conference in Auckland. His address in Dunedin to a record Club Otago attendance was his only other official public appearance in the country.
He spoke about riding clean (on ‘bread and water’) for two and a half years against those boosted by performance-enhancing testosterone and EPO (erythropoietin, a naturally occurring hormone which boosts red blood cell production which was injected into riders’ systems); about how he succumbed to his first doping episode in 1997 (taking a ‘red egg’, aka a testosterone pill) and how his life then spiralled downhill from there.
Hamilton says he – and most other professional cyclists – lived a double life: on the outside there was the glitz and glamour of the Tour de France and being a professional athlete with its money and fame, while on the inside the shame and stealth involved in injecting EPO and, once testing became more stringent, re-infusing blood taken off earlier. There were also tales of shadowy doctors and undercover rendezvous (and the money the medics were earning), the absolute power of Armstrong, the corrupt nature of the UCI and how he eventually decided enough was enough.
As part his revealing all, he co-authored The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs, winner of the William Hill Sports Book the Year in 2012, the annual British sports literary award.
More than 70 books were sold at the end of the lunch. Hamilton not only signed all of them and spoke to each of the buyers but also donated the proceeds to the Foundation.
His time in Dunedin, which also included watching Highlanders beat the Blues in Super 15 rugby action and a visit to the Highlanders’ dressing room post-match where he spoke to the players and was presented with a jersey, will be remembered fondly by all who met an amazingly humble athlete of genuine class.
For more on Tyler Hamilton’s story visit the New Zealand Herald website