Hamilton dismisses the ‘arms race' between doctors and anti-doping authorities with tales of evading testers that are almost comical in their simplicity. Landis : cappuccino-quaffing individualist The idea that Lance was purposefully depriving Floyd of an opportunity to compete.' It's poetic justice, for Hamilton, when Landis is the one who finally blows the whistle on Armstrong with his email to USADA. What he hated - what his soul raged against - was unfairness. He's an oddball who questions the rules, skateboards into town and once drank 14 capuccinos in one sitting, but has a strong sense of what is right and wrong. Routinely described as a ‘Mennonite kid,' Hamilton sees Landis as a man of both conviction and resolve, in many ways an equal to Armstrong. He even allegedly called Hamilton to the UCI's headquarters for a meeting to discuss suspicious blood values on Armstrong's instruction, after Hamilton beat Armstrong in the Mt Ventoux time-trial at the 2004 Criterium du Dauphine. ‘Hein' (the two were on first name terms) was often at Armstrong's beck and call. Is it still possible to believe Armstrong didn't dope?Ĭover-ups, an unwillingness to catch dopers, and a more than cosy relationship between Armstrong and former president Hein Verbruggen Hamilton is scathing of the UCI throughout the book.Īs did Floyd Landis, he alleges that Armstrong tested positive for EPO during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland, but that Armstrong 'had meetings with people at the lab and it all went away.' In fact there is only one question it doesn't answer. It is an answer booklet to the questions and uncertainties that have swelled around cycling in recent months and years. What really gives the book its power, though, is that it is not just Hamilton's version of events. Yet limiting the book to a chronicle of cheating misses the most intriguing element the book is a profound assessment of Armstrong's character, told through the turbulent crests and troughs of Hamilton's complex relationship with his idol, mentor, friend, adversary, and bully.

The lack of smudges or omissions tempts you to treat the narrative as a work of fiction until Daniel Coyle's explanatory footnotes and interviews with former riders jolt you back down to earth.

The clarity and detail of Hamilton's memory is quite remarkable.

The secret race book review