Tyler Hamilton | The Truth About Doping in Cycling | Full Talk and Q&A 

Tyler was always one of my favorite cyclists. He was raised similar to myself by an old school no nonsense father. Always felt he and Greg L were two of the best. Thanks for sharing Mr Hamilton. I hope you have a long and healthy life.

The "Secret race" is the best book I have ever read. And I am not a cycle fan. Thank you Mr. Hamilton.

I read his book, then bumped into him in a supermarket in Montana. What a lovely man he is. He made a mistake and he’s sorry.

A 'must see' for every student, politician, employee, priest, director, partner, president, banker, commissioner, athlete, in fact… anyone. This crystal clear speech of Tyler Hamilton is powerful. You may think it is about cycling, but it is far more ánd deeper. Situations of yes-or-no | in-or-out. And we all recognize these situations. Crossroads: crucial choices that you do and do not see coming. And there is one universal rule: you have to choose, often in a splitt-second. And you can never decide ‘backwards', only forward. Think about it when you are confronted with “the little red eggs” in your own life, as Tyler Hamilton clearly explains. Chapeau for this man. I think this timeless speech deserves a large audience and many (re)views.

None of us can change the past, but we can own it and share our story. You have done that and more. "I had spent the last 14 years protecting a culture not worth protecting." Then the truth set you free. Wow - what a story. Thanks for sharing!!

So true about corporate cheating and lying. I’ve sat in those meetings in the past, and when the time came to continue to lie I chose to not agree with the leaders of that company. When you sit in an office with the president of a billion dollar organization and he asks you “Do you respect me” I thought about my time in the military and I replied “sorry I don’t and I never will” a month later he showed up with HR and fired me for no cause. It was the best day of my life, having to work and represent a culture of lying and egos is hard on you’re moral being.

Excellent talk. He seems deeply haunted by his decisions during his career, wearing the emotional scars quite visibly. It's very noticeable how he slowly and reflectively nods after every sentence, almost an affirmation that how he has corrected his life following his admissions was truly the right thing to do, not only for himself, but for those around him whom he obviously feels he let down massively. I started following cycling in the mid 80s, and the 90s was probably its heyday for me. But it is indeed a sport with large and macabre clouds hanging over it, probably even to this day - methods of evading detection becoming more and more sophisticated and keeping one step ahead of the authorities. Respect to the man... it takes fortitude and soul-searching to go about relieving yourself of heavy burdens of conscience. It leads you down dark paths but also out into bright light at the other end. In an age of duplicity, dishonesty and lack of integrity, certainly in big business and politics, it is refreshing to see a man confront his demons and lay his soul bare, accepting the responsibility for the results of his actions, and even welcoming them as part of his own catharsis. We could do with more it in this wasteland of morals we currently inhabit. Hats off to you, Tyler.

Thank you very much Tyler for your humility and honesty. Your still facing pain head on in a really awesome way. Keep up the good work and the good fight. This world could use more good folks like yourself!

Bravo Tyler,you did your duty!Feel proud that you are helping so many young ones by telling your story sincerely.Thanks.

Sounds and seems ruthlessly candid... Track and field is still looking for someone like you that calls things as they are.

I'm an even bigger fan of Tyler Hamilton now than ever.

Tyler, if you ever read this, I would like to commend you for your actions and words not only in this video but for all sport-enthusiasts out there who ever thought that "their sport is a clean sport" because you dis-spell that theory in this video. As a fan of you and your sport of cycling in the 90's, it doesn't shock me that you doped. However your words renew my faith in the human spirit which combats lies and deceit. You purposely confront the competitive notions of winning at all costs and secretive selection societies to "come clean" and speak about the lies and internal strifes conflicting with what was happening in the past. I totally respect you more NOW, than I ever did THEN!

Great to see Tyler. He looked like a young kid when he joined Tour but now a adult with giving great speech. He was one of best climber in Tour and assistance of Lance that time.

For a lifelong fan, I appreciate your open commentary on the problem that is destroying the sport I live. Knowledge is power.

A powerful testimony about the dangers of compromising one's own standards. No one believed Tyler in the beginning. Then it became clear he was really telling the truth.

In my opinion, very deep thoughts by Tyler Hamilton. Not just to think about cycling and sports. Thanks a lot, Tyler.

Tyler, this speech took courage to share. Well done. Redemption and the truth are always at hand.

Secret race is a great book. I root for you Tyler, ur the man with a big heart and that what matters the most.

This is one of the best speeches I've heard. Man the wisdom in this dude.

"Is it possible to return to a level of trust in cycling again?" - No. I love cycling, I follow the TdF. But when Froome puts on massive speed from seemingly nowhere I think to myself, "Wow. That's just like Lance." And at the end of every stage, when the winner crosses the line I'm all, "That's so cool! Good for him! ......He's probably on drugs." I really appreciated Tyler's honesty in answering that question. What a stand-up guy.

Very candid, and brutally truthful gentleman.........don't be so hard on yourself Tyler, you are free from the chains that bound you. Go now and do what is right. And may peace and happiness surround you. Don't forget those who you journeyed with reach out to them, make peace and help them if you can. If not go away with your head held high for your a really good and honest man.

Thanks for Oxford Union for hosting this event and thanks for Tyler for what I hope are some honest answers. As a rider for the past 35 years, I've seen at amateur level some of the things that go on and I don't think that it was much different for the pros. Fame and fortune sometimes force people to cross the line that they normally wouldn't and many would criticizes them for that but riders who are that driven don't see things the same way that even regular aspiring athletes would, let alone the general public.

Just awesome … wish I could say I’d do the right thing under that pressure 😮 This man is to be admired with his humility🙏🏻

Good for you! Because of your honesty your real self is shining through. Thank you!

Tyler was a tough S.O.B. as a rider. He once crashed and then continued to race with a broken collar bone. The story has it that he gritted his teeth so hard, he ground them down.

Tyler is not just speaking about his own experiences but the archetypal athlete who will do anything to win. He is speaking about the transformation of the person who is honest with his/her ideals. If you cheat, whether or not anyone discovers or not, you have to live with it, and according to Tyler cheating is not worth it! I will be showing this video to my athletic/sporting son when he is old enough so that he can learn from those who have come before him that cheating is always wrong. The question you will asks is what about those cheaters who win and get away with it? This is why we need to continue actively pursuing cheaters in sports, and those that get away will ultimately live with the consequences for ever, living diminished, weak lives. Spread the word and lets create a world of athletes who respect their futures and the ideals and concept of sport. Our biggest enemy are the money makers of sports (corporations and cheating Nations of the world) who don't care about the individual, only corporate profit.

16:10 "... I lied. Professional cycling was a brotherhood. We lived by the omerta, a code of silence we all understood. We protected each other. We protected the system. Lying and denying was what I was supposed to do. You get caught -- you say nothing. You take one for the team. That's how it was done. " 18:18 "The more I talked the more I realized, I had spent the last fourteen years protecting a culture that was never worth protecting. In the end the truth saved me. While my story happened in cycling, every industry has its unwritten rules. It's own secret race. Corporate corruption is widespread. Academic cheating is at an all time high. And a growing number of people in the work place feel they have to bend the rules to get ahead. Whether the rewards are money, fame, power, personal validation, a promotion, or a scholarship, the pressure to excel has taken its toll." 22:06 "Back when I started everyone was,.. you know, the whole peloton was doping." 34:37 Question: Was the culture perpetuated by the team leaders? Answer, about culture, to 35:53 particularly informative. Worth listening to entirely. 52:47 "It wasn't possible to win the Tour de France clean. Not even close. Not even close." 54:24 "But I do think it's important to talk about it. If we don't really figure out what happened in the past, ..how it happened, ..and why it happened, we're going to have to go through the same thing again."

Thank you for your honesty Tyler. Enjoyed this video.

"I wish I knew then, that giving back an Olympic gold medal would feel better than winning it" - that is one hell of a line. TH seems like a complete legend - thank you for your honesty and for what you have done for the sport in the past decade. Chapeau

Excellent video. Thanks for posting. He's right about the GT's teams should be pared down to 7, or even 5 riders, and the races need to be easier overall. I think having two rest days is also important. But I still think there should be one epic day in any GT. In the old days that often separated the true leaders, and brought out winners.

Finally read The Secret Race after wanting to read it for a few years. Finished it in less than a week. Such a great book and amazing story

Respect to you Tyler. You have done a important job with opening up this dirty side of cykling.

that was the most honest and humble confession of his experience .Great interview

Well done Tyler and good for you speaking the truth

You're a great man TH. I like to remember the highs, they were amazing says.

Thank you, Tyler. You’ve done the necessary and done it well for the future of cycling.

Powerful stuff...goes way beyond the world of cycling and into how society works

wish someone had asked about that climb with the broken collar bone - that was gnarly

Massive respect for your honesty, I presume it must have been a difficult thing after all those years. Grtz from Belgium, take care Tyler!

tyler hamillton was a great racer and a great teammate to those guys. he was young and carried massive weight. he rode broken to do his job. this guy is someone i would like to meet someday. i love cycling and that era was insane with the highest level of competition. none of those guys backed down from a fight .

I read his book and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Thankyou Tyler for your honesty and humility. You should be very proud of all that you have done. I respect you very much. You may have testified against friends but you did not do this to destroy people but just bring out the truth. Lance on the other hand set out to destroy people. Greg Lemond, Betsy Andreou and Frankie, his masseuse Emma O'Reiley, David Walsh.

that last question by the host was so insightful if you compare 2016 tif to this years (2022)

Tyler, thank you for being honest. Being on the right part has no price.

His monologue was very well done and enthralling. His answers in the Q&A session left a lot to be desired.

Respect to you Tyler!

I have read Tyler's excellent book and commend him for his honesty. I wish you well. 👍

Superb speech and interview. History will look favorably upon you, Tyler.

We found about about the extent of doping in cycling……… ALL other sports have still to be revealed….. This is a culture in Professional Sports not just cycling . Having said that Tyler Hamilton has came out of it all a winner in my eyes. The guy was formidable during his time.

"I don't consider myself a victim.." That's probably the best line I ever heard.

What a hero this guy is to me.

Amazing truthfulness and clarity. I salute you.

I have read every book in that room. Except that brown one...

I came to this from reading his book "The Secret Ride" It is gripping! What a humble and genuine guy

How courageous an interview. Tyler Hamilton still is one of my most influential cyclists from the 90's TDF era. It takes a real man to stand up and say I was wrong. None of this takes away his amazing career as a cyclist. Thanks, Tyler.

It’s a shame the adverts kept getting interrupted by some cyclist talking. More adverts next time and less padding please

That takes more courage than winning Olympic gold ten times. Bravo to you young man, YOU are a true hero.

I hope these students know just how hard this bloke was when he cycled

Great video of someone accepting their fallibility and providing a cautionary tale for the rest of us. If he had said "no" when he was first offered PEDs, then we'd have never learned his name. He'd have quietly exited the top echelon of the sport and never attained the results or notoriety that we've come to know. Instead, his replacement or his replacement's replacement would have said "yes." And then years later perhaps that someone would be telling the tale. Perhaps I was one of those who never got to the levels Mr. Hamilton achieved because I never was given that choice. Not that I have any regrets, but I do now know that I was competing directly with top amateur and pros who were most definitely doping. Without a doubt. So perhaps I'm that person you never heard about because I never had the chance to be tempted by the lure of the results PEDs promised back then. Such a shame that cheating is rampant at the top levels of almost everything. College scandals, sex scandals, financial scandals, you name it. And unfortunately as the slice of the economic pie gets thinner and thinner for Americans, many more will feel compelled to cross the line to achieve advantage or success.

I do like Tyler's transparency of the whole cycling sport. I wish more people would reveal there experiences. Maybe when more of them retire?

I like Tyler, still have a hat he signed for me at TOC. Good luck to you.

Now I'm a Tyler Hamilton fan. Thanks man :)

I remember so well. Followed closely. We met in Mass, years earlier, at SRP. Thank you. Took a lot of courage.

A little man with a big heart! thank you tyler!

I knew a sportsman back some years ago who had full access to all types of medications and performance enhancers. He had rugby customers, footballers, gymnasts, Gaelic footballers, tennis players and even a golfer calling for supplies. None of these were the elite level. None were even the 'elite' in the local city where I lived. That's how widespread doping is.

I'm spanish and i'm constantly blamed when I say that long before Armstrong and his team were doped, doping in cycling was and still there. I can't proove Indurain was doped, surely he was the best and a beast, but winning 5 tours and 2 Giro's in a row is the result of an exceptional cyclist+doping. Ever since, the real race is between teams and their "doctors" and the UCI capability to detect doping. My nephew (actually 24 y/o was a real beast at cycling being only 16, he began to have some semi-professional offers and all of them included a diet control (which is something natural to progress into top level) and a "medical additional improvement". My sister decided since in those days that he could cycle as a hobby.

Comptemplating Chris Froome decision that he won doping case for TDF 2018. Tyler you are an amazing man and athlete. All respect. Thank you.

Thank you Tyler.

he should have narrated the audio book version of the secret race himself, he tells the story very articulately

I'd liked to ask a question of that "class" of Oxford students. How many of you use drugs? How many have used stimulants to do an all-nighter to finish a paper or cram for a exam? How many smoke dope? George Harrison and John Lennon dropped acid for the very first time at Harrison's Dentist's home. The next day Harrison and Lennon wrote a hit song about the experience. there's an interview on RU-vid of Harrison telling the story, performance enhancing drugs are more than just in sports. And to boot artists are revered and rewarded for doing such things. I really don't care much one way or the other but I do have a problem when one sector is singled out. Lance Armstrong is a pariah. If they tested most athletes (and not just pros) they'd find a great many guilty. College, High School, and even masters amateurs.

Respect for this man.

Great speech and good that Tyler is talking about the problem. Like he said there's lots of doping in every sports and cross country skiing is somewhat familiar to me as a Finn. Finnish XC skiing team had terrible doping scandal during 2001 World Championships in Lahti, Finland. It was national disgrace because it was home games. 6 Finnish skiers got caught from doping. They used Hydroxyethyl starch. That substance is used to hide the EPO or blood doping. I think also now in XC skiing there are lots of skiers who use doping but they know how to play the game and not get caught. Also one other thing that Tyler said about costs. EPO vs high altitude training. One other thing came to my mind from XC skiing: Fluorine wax ban which is planned by FIS. Fluorine waxes are bad for health and for environment but they are comparatively cheap in racing situations (expensive for normal use). If fluorine wax ban is coming at some point then it might mean that smaller national teams don't have same chances to winning anymore because they don't have enough resources for ski testing and maintenance etc. So what I want to say is that competitive sports in top level is always somehow rigged and usually those that have most resources tend to win.

The governing bodies in sports are just as guilty as a doping sportsman. The International Cycling Union (UCI ) knew what was going on for years, but turned a blind eye to it. Hamilton mentioned himself that some sports don't think they have a problem, which clearly can't be the case. Doping will never go away, but educating the younger generation better will help in a small way but, sadly, it will never go away.

Tyler said it, “it was about keeping up” If you didn’t dope, you didn’t win.

Thanks Tyler, important to get this out, and for your own benefit.

Takes alot of guts to speak publicly about your failures; I commend you on that. At least, there are people out there that can own up to their mistakes...I made some dumb decisions in the past that should of destroyed me but the truth does set one free.

Tyler is brave to speak the truth. I’m afraid there are people don’t want him speak out. 👍

Great video! Tyler seems like a really genuine and down to earth rad dude.

What an awesome talk! Great job Tyler.

There is probably no other cyclist who has done so much for the sport of cycling. Thanks Tyler!

That's got to be intimidating, to be standing so close to a large group of people baring your soul and secrets without even a pedestal for an emotional shield.

Doping has more appeal in cycling because a grand tour is BONKERS. Im a half decent cyclist and if i rode one day in the tour i would be toast for a week. They barely get to that point at the end "they should make it easier". That wont be a popular idea but ya, pretty much. Nobody is trying to do 5 ironmans in a week.

The gel cap Tyler is talking about at 6:15 is Andriol. Testosterone, taken orally, is reabsorbed through the portal vein and immediately deactivated by the liver and thus produces no results. Testosterone Undecanoate in Andriol, however, is reabsorbed from the intestine through the lymphatic system, bypassing the liver and thus becoming effective. Liver function is in no way affected by this process of reabsorption.

and the truth shall make you free. Greetings from Poland Tyler.

One point not made when Tyler is asked which sports are most suspect is that sports where endurance and/or sheer power are supremely required are the ones most at risk of doping. Running and swimming, cycling (any distance), soccer (due to the sheer amount of running and number of games played), lifting, jumping, throwing, wrestling, MMA, boxing, cross country skiing, etc. Sports that are more skill-based like driving, golf, darts, and ping-pong, benefit less from doping assistance. Sports like tennis, baseball, cricket, and basketball are in between.

Tyler Hamilton is just an altogether decent guy.

Very powerful and enlightening speech.

I watched Tyler as a cyclist, among others. Clearly a natural talent. I'm not overly intrigued by his motivation to dope. It's pretty obvious. Given the stakes, money, fame. adoration. I would suggest or desire, a less restrained style from Tyler. At least in interviews. I know it's hard to be in front of an audience. But a lot of us know as much as he does about his colleagues. He doesn't have to protect anyone any more. That means, not playing ignorant about, cycling and other sports involvement with PED's. It's rampant. But, the interview smacks of a Thanksgiving dinner. Every one is so reserved, and proper. I don't encourage character assassination, just a tad more transparency. Your doing a great job Tyler, I respect that. Just take a few more moments to reflect on the answers to hard questions. I know it is nerve wracking to be interviewed in front of a crowd. Also, remember to breathe in the interviews.

This guy talks a lot in the library.

Tyler is so eloquent and classy, he would have succeeded at anything he put his mind to.

As an ex athlete, national record holder, now at the age of 68 I can say to one and all, that the most valuable, glorious, and powerful state the human mind can ever achieve, is "a clear conscience before God." If you've never tried it my friend, give it a whirl. He waits for all of us to "come clean." And stands lovingly ready to forgive. The only sin which is truly unforgiveable is unbelief. Take notice how each one of us lives with "our own conscience" and if that conscience is violated, it robs us of everything life was meant to be. I believe that conscience is literally our constant link with our Creator who gave it to us to teach and train us in what is right in life and what is wrong. Tyler, you have always been a champion. Thank you for your efforts now on behalf of "truth." God bless and keep you my brother. I still tell everyone I know, when the topic comes up that the greatest single sports accomplishment I have ever witnessed was when Tyler Hamilton won at Alpe d' Huez with a broken collarbone.

Great question & answer session. I do feel he's still quarded on a few things but who can blame him, glad he's moving on and the best of luck to him.👌

As an Olympic medalist once said. "In certain sports i've never met someone who won the gold in the Olympics that wasn't on or doing something whether it be this or that. Everyone is doping up something."

Top dude.. He's bang on about other sports too... Compelling viewing..Respect Tyler

He looks like he's about to cry tears any moment

For Tyler, there are good and tough questions. He seems a good guy.

Like the Jonny Cash quote.

respect

those days I was such a fanatic of cycling as sport to watch (I'm still quite passionate and I'm an amateur rider). I still remember italian TV commentators (who were full of anecdotal) when they told us spectators about Tyler's dog death before a Tour stage and how sad he was. R.I.P. his beloved dog

I really like tyler. Humble, supremely talented. Faced the void, went the wrong way. Now doing the thing thing.I'm sure he feels great inside. I think lance is doing the right thing now too.