-----------------------------------------------------------------Dear Everybody,
I hope this finds you all doing well.
First of all, sorry for sending this out as a group letter. If there was any way I could come visit each of you individually, I would. I hope we are together soon.
There’s no easy way to say this, so let me just say it plain: on Sunday night you’ll see me on “60 Minutes” making a confession that’s overdue. Long overdue.
During my cycling career, I knowingly broke the rules. I used performance-enhancing drugs. I lied about it, over and over. Worst of all, I hurt people I care about. And while there are reasons for what I did — reasons I hope you’ll understand better after watching — it doesn’t excuse the fact that I did it all, and there’s no way on earth to undo it.
The question most people ask is, why now? There are two reasons. The first has to do with the federal investigation into cycling. Last summer, I received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. Until that moment I walked into the courtroom, I hadn’t told a soul. My testimony went on for six hours. For me, it was like the Hoover dam breaking. I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I’d never felt before — all the secrets, all the weight I’d been carrying around for years suddenly lifted. I saw that, for me personally, this was the way forward.
The second reason has to do with the sport I love. In order to truly reform, cycling needs to change, and change drastically, starting from the top. Now that I’m working as a coach, I see young people entering the sport with hopes of making it to the top. I believe that no one coming into the sport should have to face the difficult choices I had to make. And before the sport can move forward, it has to face the truth.
This hasn’t been easy, not by a long shot. But I want to let you know that I’m doing well. The coaching business is more fun and fulfilling than I’d ever imagined, and Tanker and I are loving our Boulder life. I recently turned 40, and my friends threw the best 80’s themed surprise party in the history of the world (hey, most of you were there!). Life is good.
Again, I just want to say I’m sorry, and that I hope you can forgive me. What matters to me most are my family and friends. I’m deeply grateful for all your support and love through the years, and I’m looking forward to spending time with all of you again, hopefully soon. My Mom and Dad always told me that the truth would set me free. I never knew how right they were.
Sincerely,
Tyler Hamilton
I've got some thoughts on it too.
Dear Tyler,
I presume everybody who raced pro in the era you came up in, raced on dope. I suspect that very few avoided it; even anti-doping advocates like Jens Voigt are cagey, and admit they came their current position because they didn't like the other path, or slippery words to that effect. Yeah, Lance probably doped. So did everybody during that period. I'm more or less over it. He's an ex-racer who runs a cancer foundation, as far as I care at this point. I don't exactly follow him, or carry a vendetta for the dirty racers of that time period, I'd rather we expend resources cleaning up cycling now, than hashing over crimes from back when UCI turned a blind eye to the problem.
Many were caught, and many denied doping during your era. Yet few attacked their accusers - including 'accusers' who weren't actually accusing but citing doping convictions, facts - with the vindictiveness that you and those close to you used. Lance, who hasn't been busted, goes around personally attacking people who accuse him of doping, making a good point - you'd better be able to make the accusation stick in a court of law. Yeah, it's bullying, but it isn't the personal attack your buddies and family launched on people, and he doesn't go around telling outlandish lies about his phantom twin being the cause of the test failures. You have been caught at least a couple times that we know about, and a few years back I remember reading in Bicycling how you used your family and friends as attack dogs to personally abuse anybody who so much as raised a whisper about doubting you, including people you had known for years and who considered you a close friend. That makes you a buddy fucker, Tyler. And buddy fuckers are lower than whale shit.
You're like Floyd in that sense; you preyed on credulous others to get them to pay for your legal defense, knowing all the time that you were a damned dirty doper. Lance is probably a damned dirty doper too, but he hasn't made personal appeals to me or my friends to pay for his grand jury defense costs, based on his "innocence."
Doping is bad enough, getting caught is worse, then mounting a 7 year campaign to impugn those who caught you, is even worse than that. Now I guess we're supposed to absolve you because you confessed to make yourself feel better, or some bullshit like that. Like the phantom twin story, it strains credulity. I'm glad you feel better; but none of us feel better about what you did or the way you treated us. Reading your story about watching Lance dope is like watching a felon on the stand implicating somebody else based on a jailhouse conversation. Maybe everybody has to go to jail here for justice to get done, and maybe it's the truth, but it's damn ugly and an honest person looking on can't trust any of the actors involved. It's a train crash. Thanks for causing it, jerk.
I got a newsflash for you Tyler: you may be telling the truth and it may make you feel better, but it doesn't make most of the rest of us feel better. Many of us wish you'd just go away and maybe help Basso with his cancerous dog, or help out Leogrande as he quits cycling to concentrate on tattoos. Maybe if Lance is eventually caught, you guys can buy an island somewhere and spend the rest of your days rationalizing what you did.
Some of us fans are getting dubious about the flunked test => confession =>anti doper metamorphosis that is so common; but please understand, even in those cases where we as cycling fans agree to not despise a confessed doper, the doper didn't just wrap up a 6 year campaign of slander and agit prop. The coverup is almost always as bad as the underlying crime; and the coverup is worse when your mechanism isn't just lying but attacking others in libelous terms.
For many years, Tyler, you were completely sanctimonious in your denials, pointing fingers at others to explain away your doping. Like a preacher who gets caught with a prostitute, or a book keeper caught embezzling, you betrayed a trust. The hypocrisy of what you did is stunning; you didn't just deny, you blamed and lectured.
In the end, I'm sure God will forgive you. Me, I just want you to go away so I can forget you and get back to watching the ATOC and Giro. Your doping was bad enough, your coverup was worse, and all the crap you're now doing to make yourself feel better or sell books or settle scores or whatever you're trying to do, is worse yet. Please, go away while there are still three or four people left in the world that you haven't pissed off.
Warmest regards,
Jim
12 comments:
Could not disagree with you more, Jim. Despite all the pain he caused, mad props to the dude for telling the truth before he killed himself alone in a hotel room.
what's weird is that I feel differently about landis and tyler.
I'm not sure why.
I admit to gravitating towards landis, but ever since the chimera thing came out, Tyler repulsed me.
very weird.
respect
fm
Anon 9:55 - it's entirely possible that you are right and I am completely wrong. This is how I feel about the guy. I don't much like Floyd for similar reasons - he sees the light when it suddenly becomes profitable for him to do so. I hold Hamilton in lower regard though due to the implausible pee-on-my-leg-and-tell-me-it's-raining chimerical twin excuse and also his vindictiveness toward people who chose to believe - correctly - WADA and USADA, USAC and the UCI. All y'all know that I don't carry much water for our official sanctioning and anti-doping bodies, but they are the best we got, and based on my limited personal knowledge they give a lot of people breaks. The testing ain't great, but when they really say they have somebody, they usually do. I've come around on this; I still thing the lab procedures and evidentiary chains are crap but doping seems so prevalent in our sport that I can forgive the hanging judges and itchy trigger fingered sheriffs trying to clean it up, faster than I can forgive a guy who was an unrepentant, really nasty and arrogant doper until yesterday.
FatMarc - they were similar but as I noted, Floyd was fraudulent about soliciting donations and defending himself, Tyler was fraudulent and vindictive, plus he asked us to believe some really crazy lies. That's more offensive and I think it carries greater moral culpability.
I think if you are just looking for redemption, then apologizing to whom you've wronged is appropriate. Then full stop. Shut up and don't throw others under the bus. If you are subpoened to tell the truth in court then do so, but don't go on 60 minutes and point fingers.
But what can we expect? So far nearly all of them have done what is in their own best interest at any point in the process. Not the best interest for "cleaning up" the sport. These folks have no credibility.
I agree--I think most of us believe deep down that Lance and nearly every competitive person on the podium doped. We have moved on. There will always be an " * " by Lance and many others in the peloton during that era, even bleeding forward into the current time. As you said, the tests may not be great, but it is all we have. People will always be looking for an edge--at such a high level of competition it never will be purely clean. We can just strive for the best we can do.
Would it be "fair" if Lance made millions and cheated? No. But people cheat and make money all the time. We just don't like them to be our heroes.
I have generally really enjoyed your posts and find you very insightful, but believe this is not one of your better posts. The sport needs the truth to be fleshed out, even if the truth comes from persons who have themselves committed despicable acts.
Sad to see you minimizing Lance's likely transgressions by resorting to the "Yeah, Lance probably doped, but so did everybody else so it's not a big enough deal to dredge it back up." You can choose to believe Lance was clean, and that's one thing, but if you do not believe that then do not reduce his doping to something trivial. While the persons competing with him for TdF wins were also doping, the impact is more widespread - e.g., there were actually persons who had all the tools to make it in professional cycling except for the willingness to cheat, and when faced with mandates from riders like LA to either do it or be a loser, they quit the sport.
If Tyler chooses to tell his story, we can believe him or not. But believing him AND berating him for telling the story? Not a well-thought out decision, Jim. Truth is good in this instance.
Awww, Jim. Dude. You get so many things so right, and then . . .
I'm sorry guys. With Hamilton and Floyd it's personal. They lied their asses off to us fans, asked us to underwrite their legal defense, impugned anybody who said they doped, and now they're seeking redemption. Sorry, but fuck them.
My feelings don't have a lot to do with what I think about Lance. They have a lot to do with what I think about Tyler and Floyd. You won't hear me talking this kind of smack about Joe Papp, or David Millar, or for that matter George Hincapie. If George's testimony takes Lance down, so be it. Hincapie is credible in my book - a credible likely doper - but he hasn't spent the last half decade lying his ass off to us and slandering the people who caught him doping. So if Lance goes down at his hands, that's fine, and it's probably deserved. But I'm really resentful over what we're being asked to swallow with these two scumbags - their confessions have the convenience of prison conversions. We're just as stupid and credulous as we were when we bought their bullshit hook, line and sinker a few years ago; it's just that now they're telling a different self-serving story. Hincapie, Joe Papp and David Millar never lied to me - to us fans - like they did.
I refuse to hug a couple demonstrable frauds just because they promise me they can help the law get at another guy who is a likely fraud.
Bloody tops mate!
You are right on with this post and I wish those who are only "telling the truth" by throwing others under the bus, nothing but despair.
I'll gladly forgive someone for a mistake if they confess and repent, but if half of what you say about Tyler's band of thugs is true, I could never respect him as a man, or trust his intentions of trying to clean up the sport.
Tyler, as a coach?!?! WTF?!?!
I'm sure this argument will be drawn down the same Lance doped/ Lance is clean lines, but I'll reserve judgment until some proof is uncovered. If there are still BALCO syringes and invoices, surely Nowitsky could uncover something.
For all the hypocrites that expect nothing less than a full admission from Lance, I ask, why not demand a full confession from Jonathan Vaughters? For someone that is as coy and evasive as he is when talking about his past, why is he given a free pass? Because he runs an anti-doping team? If his current work forgives his past transgressions, why does Livestrong not count as something for Lance?
Steve, because it's about hating on Lance, that's why. People seem to love two things more than anything: toppling a big man, and a big man that has toppled, who is somehow rehabilitated. I give you Lance, and Tyler.
Interesting set of comments.....all sides presented.
I don't feel anger/resentment like Jim towards Floyd and Tyler. I feel bad for them and am content their conscience finally got to them. I question those who continue to live the hypocrisy of their past.....like Vaughters. Some choose to come out solo and seek redemption - Millar, some continue to deny their doping after serving their time - Vino, some are forced to bring down others because of Grand Juries - like Tyler. Some aren't ready to do so because they are still racing - George.
I also wonder where Lance was when Floyd and Tyler took the big hit....did he call them after? I've heard no mention of such by either. Did he contribute to their denial campaign? He smeared them just as much as they did he.
Frankie A - he's akin to George. He played nicely as best and as long as he could....He's a stand up guy as far as I can tell. Yet he also took some massive hits - from Lance as well as the industry. He's only now getting back to being a contributor.
And the penalties are inconsistent. Floyd looses a TdF title yet Riis still holds his. Tyler returns the Gold Medal and guess who might get it... Ekimov - of the previous all doping USSR cycling team! It's a clear case of governing bodies getting in the mix.
The thing I didn't like about the 60 minutes piece was the drilling into JUST Lance ... even the story is titled LA. Tyler always said it wasn't just Lance - we all did it etc .... Yes Lance drove the decisions on whose riding with me and thus if you want to ride then follow my lead..... no different than coverups in other industries - Madoff, Enron, etc etc.
I also don't buy the lying argument...thus you can't believe them. Of course they are gonna lie....they lied while doing it and they don't want to bring down their friends....but in the end a Grand Jury or a Mennonite upbringing has it's effect....and the lie must end. These guys have little to gain financially.....a book sale might generate something but not so as to make them set for life.
We all continue to talk about doping since Festina in 1999.... it's not gone away....the only way is when the next generation arrives 100% clean. And having recently spent several hours one morning talking over breakfast with one of that next generation.....I feel confident it will end OR those that are clean will leave the sport.
JAA - good perspective. I would note that there's justice & public perceptions, then there's law and due process. They are distinct. Tyler and Floyd are winning the former fight, Lance is in better shape for the latter, where evidence is required. As for having nothing to lose, I suspect that Floyd and Tyler and the other members of MotorPostDisco are facing the same possible fraud charges as Lance - a pretty weak legal theory BTW but one kept on the table, in likelihood, only to generate perjury charges. So it isn't clear to me that Tyler & Floyd can tell the truth (outside the Grand Jury room wher they have immunity) without facing legal jeopardy. George & Frankie are trying to be standup guys, pretty clearly, but they are going to get caught up in it. As for Vaughters, I can live with his hypocrisy, I do not wish him to remain a doper to the end and I can live with his silence. A confession is not necessary, he appears to be doing plenty to improve the state of things going forward. On the young guys - yes! I hope they are able to maintain their integrity. The only way doping stops or gets made manageable is for up & coming riders to be committed against it, and for those in the upper reaches (e.g. Vaughters) to create places where they can race in an environment that disapproves of doping.
Post a Comment