Cycling is a catty world, isn’t it? If you were to take the bikes out of the equation, you’d have enough Lifetime-worthy chick-flick plot lines to run for 20 years. Never mind that we’re talking about a subset of athletes that regularly wax their bodies and shave their legs — and those are just the dudes. The ongoing petty scandals combined with the gaudy outfits has made cycling the anti-manly, weirdo-drama queen cousin of mainstream American sports.
And in the true style of frauds and cowards, Tyler Hamilton has reemerged with more (yawn) doping accusations of Lance Armstrong. Somebody must have a new book coming out! Keep in mind, Hamilton has been busted twice by the dubious powers that be in the cycling world (ultimately enforced by USA Cycling). He received a 2-year ban, came back and doped again and got an 8-year ban. And now, much like the main character in Poe’s famous Tell-Tale Heart he couldn’t help himself from once again going out of his way to accuse Armstrong of doping.
Whether or not Armstrong actually did cheat is well, pretty dubious itself. Armstrong has public immunity because of the relative obscurity of cycling and of course, the tangible awareness he’s made in cancer research. He’s the made-in-America hero who stuffed the spandex down the throat of those snooty euros. Very few sports fans are pulling for Wladimir Belli and would feel ripped off if Lance cheated him (her?) out of a Tour de France victory. Contrast this to certified public villains like Barry Bonds, who may have popped some of his HGH fueled homers off of your favorite pitcher or defeated your favorite team. Now it’s personal.
But getting back to Hamilton, sympathizers may say he simply got caught in the rat-race of dopers and to quote Jim Rome, “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.” Any fall from grace begins with an ascent to grace and there’s no doubt Hamilton (like Bonds) had a better-than-average talent for his chosen sport. It wasn’t enough — and if there’s any human trait that can be forgiven, it’s the temptation to want more, more, more. Case in point: Octomom. But before forgiveness must come contrition.
Hamilton is not only lacking humility, he’s on the attack. Instead of gracefully fading to obscurity, Hamilton’s on 60 Minutes trumpeting his first-hand account of seeing Armstrong inject EPO into his body. And because he had to make himself visible, this time it may cost him his 2004 Olympic Gold Medal.
Stories like Hamilton’s are sadly common and reinforce the apocryphal notion that cycling is nothing more than a bunch of angry, lean, little men who would inject goat vomit into their bodies if it gave them an advantage. At this point, the Tour de France is more interesting to chemists than it is to cyclists. As Hamilton grasps at the last straws of respectability, instead of retaining what little dignity he had left, he’s going down in a maelstrom of pants-wetting whining — but hey, maybe he’ll sell a few more books! And as is the case of many would-be heroes, he’ll become a weak footnote in the sports world, another voice in the empty chorus of Lance bashing.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’ll be the one who finally convinces the public Lance really did cheat. And even if he wins that particular battle, Hamilton still loses. He coulda been a contender but rather, Hamilton has cemented his reputation as an expert marksman in shooting himself in the foot. Let’s hope, for his sake, he’s finally out of bullets.
