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  • The Secret Race

  • Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs
  • Written by: Tyler Hamilton, Daniel Coyle
  • Narrated by: Sean Runnette
  • Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (43 ratings)

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The Secret Race

Written by: Tyler Hamilton, Daniel Coyle
Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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Publisher's Summary

The Secret Race is a definitive look at the world of professional cycling—and the doping issue surrounding this sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong—by former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton and New York Times best-selling author Daniel Coyle.

Over the course of two years, Coyle conducted more than 200 hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke candidly with numerous teammates, rivals, and friends. The result is an explosive book that takes us, for the first time, deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to succeed that they would do anything—and take any risk, physical, mental, or moral—to gain the edge they needed to win.

Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s best-liked and top-ranked cyclists—a fierce competitor renowned among his peers for his uncanny endurance and epic tolerance for pain. In the 2003 Tour de France, he finished fourth despite breaking his collarbone in the early stages—and grinding 11 of his teeth down to the nerves along the way. He started his career with the U.S. Postal Service team in the 1990s and quickly rose to become Lance Armstrong’s most trusted lieutenant and a member of his inner circle.

For the first three of Armstrong’s record seven Tour de France victories, Hamilton was by Armstrong’s side, clearing his way. But just weeks after Hamilton reached his own personal pinnacle—winning the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics—his career came to a sudden, ignominious end: He was found guilty of doping and exiled from the sport.

From the exhilaration of his early, naïve days in the peloton, Hamilton chronicles his ascent to the uppermost reaches of this unforgiving sport. In the mid-1990s, the advent of a powerful new blood-boosting drug called EPO reshaped the world of cycling, and a relentless, win-at-any-cost ethos took root. Its psychological toll would drive many of the sport’s top performers to substance abuse, depression, even suicide. For the first time ever, Hamilton recounts his own battle with clinical depression, speaks frankly about the agonizing choices that go along with the decision to compete at a world-class level, and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Lance Armstrong.

A journey into the heart of a never-before-seen world, The Secret Race is a riveting, courageous act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France.

©2012 Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle (P)2012 Random House

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Great detail, really paints an image of what happened

The readers voice was perfect! Great book the information was outstanding and I never would have fathomed the lengths gone to for doping !

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"The truth will set you free"

A great read and an important lesson, because as Mr. Tyler Hamilton has experienced and demonstrated with his book: "The truth will set you free".

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Excellent book and great narrator

Great listen and different angle on the Lance story….The narrators’ voice is great as well

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Great book!

I really enjoyed this book:) Easy to read. Thank you Tyler, hope your life is good now:)

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Amazing book and well narrated

A really nice listen voice, and a great insight in tot he life of a Tour de France cyclist.... absolutely amazing

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Spy novel?!

Loved this! Made more memorable by meeting Tyler! No judgment. The truth shall set you free.

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