Tyler Hamilton
Tyler Hamilton
Tyler Hamiltonis an American former professional road bicycle racer. He is the only American rider to win one of the Five Monuments of Cycling. Hamilton became a professional cyclist in 1995 with the US Postal Service cycling team. He was a teammate of Lance Armstrong during the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours de France, where Armstrong won the Yellow jersey. He was a key asset for Armstrong, being a very good climber as well as time-trialist. Hamilton appeared at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCyclist
Date of Birth1 March 1971
CityMarblehead, MA
CountryUnited States of America
If you look at my career, I kind of got progressively better and better and better. I came closer to the top.
If you do have a team where every rider has a huge list of results, that means everybody wants to do the race for themselves. The strongest team in the Tour is not the strongest team on paper.
I'd never really experienced the West before moving to Colorado. The East Coast, where I grew up, has a lot of big cities, like Boston and New York, and is more densely populated, and I instantly fell in love with the big open spaces of the West, where you can see not just for a few miles but for a few hundred miles.
Whenever I was on the podium, it felt weird. I was obviously happy to have done well, but it wasn't truly happy from the bottom of my heart.
Once in a great while I miss the racing, the feeling of winning. That rush. That adrenaline.
You can call me a cheater and doper until the cows come home. But the fact remains that in a race where everybody had equal opportunity, I played the game, and I played it well.
I discovered Boulder not through cycling but skiing. I was recruited by the university for the ski team, and in my opinion, it's the best place for skiing - you have this super-light, fluffy champagne snow.
They've pushed me down a big ravine, but I'll get back up to the top.
If you like the outdoors, Colorado is a big adventure playground for adults: it's great for skiing, cycling, climbing, and hiking.
Once you start lying, you get kind of comfortable. You start believing it. Especially if you truly believe you didn't really cheat because you were doing what everybody else was doing.
Not for a second did I think it was going to turn out this way. The bottom line is an innocent athlete was suspended from competition. You could say it's a victory for USADA (U.S. Anti Doping Agency), but I think it's better to say it's a tragedy for all athletes. I'm innocent.