Tyler Hamilton
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Tyler Hamilton |
| Date of birth | March 1, 1971 (age 36) |
| Country |  United States |
| Height | 1.72 m |
| Weight | 65 kg |
| Team information | |
| Current team | Tinkoff Credit Systems |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Rider |
| Rider type | All-rounder |
| Amateur team(s) | |
| 1994 | Coors Light (stagiare) |
| Professional team(s) | |
| 1995-2001 2002-2003 2004 2007- |
US Postal Service Team CSC Phonak Tinkoff Credit Systems |
| Major wins | |
| Olympic Games Time-Trial (2004) Tour de France, 1 stage Giro d'Italia, 1 stage Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2003) Tour de Romandie (2003, 2004) Dauphiné Libéré (2000) |
|
| Infobox last updated on: | |
| January 30, 2007 | |
Tyler Hamilton (born March 1, 1971, Marblehead, Massachusetts) is an American professional road bicycle racer and Olympic gold medalist. He served a two-year suspension for blood doping, which expired in September 2006. In November 2006, Hamilton signed with Tinkoff Credit Systems[1], an Italian UCI Professional Continential Team for the 2006-2007 UCI Europe Tour season.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
He attended the Holderness School in New Hampshire. After graduating in 1990, he attended the University of Colorado at Boulder as a ski racer and received a BA degree in Economics in 1994. A back injury (two broken vertebrae while doing mountain bike dry land training on ski jump) at the University of Colorado developmental ski team in September 1991 ended his skiing career and he switched to cycling.
He turned pro in 1995, riding for the U.S. Postal Service cycling team in the 1998, 1999 and 2000 editions of the Tour de France. Hamilton was responsible for protecting Lance Armstrong in the mountain stages of the Tour, as it was hard for other teammates to keep up. Hamilton also acted as a scout in the individual time trial stages, riding as hard as possible without regard to his finishing performance to provide time-split comparisons for Armstrong.
In 2001 Hamilton left U.S. Postal and signed with Team CSC. He was made a team leader under the tutelage of manager Bjarne Riis. Hamilton fractured a shoulder in a crash in the 2002 Giro D'Italia, yet still managed to finish second. Hamilton won both the Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour de Romandie in 2003. In the 2003 Tour de France he cracked a collarbone in the first stage, but stayed in the race. He went on to win stage 16 with a 142 km solo breakaway, and placed fourth overall. For his stage win, Hamilton was awarded the Coeur de Lion (French for Heart of the Lion) prize, awarded to the most aggressive and daring racer of the stage.
In the 2004 Tour de France Hamilton raced for Phonak Hearing Systems. He dropped out on stage 13, after having continued back pain, mostly due to bruising incurred in a crash on stage 6.
He had developed a reputation for having bad luck, crashing during important stage races, but also for being a courteous, affable cyclist and spokesperson for the sport, especially in the United States. His wife Haven Hamilton and golden retriever Tugboat became recognizable fixtures at the races, appearing in photos and interviews. Late in 2003, Hamilton founded The Tyler Hamilton Foundation to raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and to help amateur cyclists rise through the ranks.
[edit] Olympic gold
At the time Hamilton had just withdrawn from the Vuelta a España. He won the stage 8 individual time trial on September 11, 2004, but resigned from the race six days later, citing stomach issues. Being the winner of the stage, he was subjected to anti-doping tests, and was informed by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) on September 13, 2004 that his two test samples from 2 days earlier had showed the presence of a "foreign blood population."[2] After initially supporting Hamilton, his Phonak team managers withdrew their support after a second member of the team, Santiago Pérez, was found positive for the same offense at the 2004 Vuelta a España.[3]
[edit] Doping suspension
On April 18, 2005 Hamilton was sentenced by the United States Anti-Doping Agency to a two-year suspension from professional cycling,[4] the maximum sentence for a first-time offense.
On May 18, 2005, he appealed the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but, after an adjournment to allow Hamilton to gather additional evidence, the Court dismissed his appeal on February 10, 2006.[5] Hamilton’s defense claimed that the UCI-sanctioned test was insufficiently validated (and may therefore have returned a false positive result) and that some of the agencies involved had concealed documents that would have supported his case. He also maintained that, even if a foreign population of cells was present in his blood, the cells were naturally present and not the result of a transfusion.
Hamilton was banned from competition until September 22, 2006, two years from the date his "B" sample taken in the Vuelta a España was found to be positive. Although current UCI ProTour rules would have effectively doubled the period of his suspension (until September 22, 2008), his positive test occurred before those rules were put into effect in 2005. Hamilton has now been reinstated.
[edit] Operación Puerto
On June 26, 2006, the Madrid daily El País alleged that the Spanish civil guard investigation of doping in Spanish professional sports, "Operación Puerto", had found that Hamilton paid more than 50,000 USD to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes between 2002 and 2004 to plan and administer his use of performance-enhancing erythropoietin (EPO), growth hormone treatment, blood doping, and masking agents.[6] The El País article charged that Hamilton's 2003 win of Liège-Bastogne-Liège followed by days a "double" blood transfusion planned by Fuentes. The evidence presented by El País also implicated Hamilton's wife, Haven Hamilton (née Parchinski), in facilitating Hamilton's doping program. Fuentes was arrested along with prominent professional cycling figure and team director Manolo Saiz in May 2006 as part of the Operación Puerto investigation.
On June 26 2006, Hamilton stated on his website: "I was very upset to read the accusations against me and to see my name associated with the "Operación Puerto" investigation in Spain. I have not been treated by Dr. Fuentes. I have not done what the article alleges. In addition, I have never been contacted by authorities in Spain regarding these allegations. Therefore, it is impossible to comment on a situation I have no knowledge of."
The Copenhagen daily, Politiken, published an article detailing further charges against Hamilton stemming from Operación Puerto on August 19 2006. [7] The article summarizes Hamilton's alleged doping program during 2003. It quotes Danish doping researcher Rasmus Damsgaard on the amount of organization Hamilton's program would have required. It cites Bjarne Riis, Hamilton's team director in 2003, denying any knowledge of Hamilton's doping. And the article states that the reporters attempted to contact Hamilton on numerous occasions while writing the article, but were unable to reach him for comment. The article's allegations against Hamilton are based on a copy of the rider's doping and racing calendar obtained by the Danish paper. The calendar was initially seized in Operación Puerto. The doping calendar indicates use of EPO, growth hormone, testosterone, blood doping, and insulin on 114 days over a period of seven months during the 2003 racing season. The racing program outlined in the calendar correlates exactly with the schedule Hamilton raced during 2003, according to Politiken. The calendar includes plans for two blood transfusions during the Tour de France. “The first time before the three stages in the Alps and the second before the twelfth stage -- a 47 km individual time trial,” write the reporters. The article also states that such an ambitious doping program would have required assistance -- “at least four or five people,” according to Damsgaard.
The next day, on August 20 2006, the Belgian, Dutch-language Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper published yet more details of Hamilton's doping diary. Among many alleged griefs, the article claims that he took EPO 30 times between December 2002 and February 2003 (while riding for Team CSC). In 2003, claimed Het Laatste Nieuws, Hamilton used doping on 114 of his 200 racing days.[8].
On September 14, 2006, USA Cycling announced that it had received information from the International Cycling Union (UCI) "regarding Tyler Hamilton and his alleged involvement in 'Operación Puerto' along with a request to move forward with disciplinary action." USA Cycling referred the case to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.[9]
Beginning in spring 2007, Hamilton commenced his professional cycling career again, having completed his two-year ban from the sport. He is a now a member of the Tinkoff Credit Systems team.
[edit] Major achievements
| Olympic medal record | |||
| Men's Cycling | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 2004 Athens | Time Trial | |
- 1993
- Captained University of Colorado at Boulder road cycling team to NCCA championship; named collegiate cyclist of the year.
- 1996
- Stage 3 and overall, Teleflextoer
- Overall, Fitchburg Longsjo Classic
- 1997
- Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb
- 1999
- Stage 4b and overall, Danmark Rundt
- Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb
- 2000
- Stage 4, 5 and overall, Dauphiné Libéré
- Stage 4, Ronde van Nederland
- 2002
- Stage 14 win and 2nd overall, Giro d'Italia
- 2003
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Stage 5 and overall, Tour de Romandie
- Stage 16, 2003 Tour de France
- 2004
- Stage 5 and overall, Tour de Romandie
- Stage 8, Vuelta a España (subsequently stripped for doping violation)
- 2005
- Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb
- 2006
- Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.procycling.ru/eng/ Tinkoff Restaurants Cycling Team
- ^ Hamilton fails dope tests, BBC on September 21 2004.
- ^ Hamilton third Phonak member dismissed for doping, ESPN on Tuesday, November 30 2004.
- ^ Hamilton given two-year doping ban, CNN on Tuesday, April 19 2005.
- ^ International Court for Arbitration in Sport, February 11 2006 (See: Case Law).
- ^ (Spanish) Las transfusiones y los dólares de Tyler Hamilton, El País, Monday, June 26 2006.
- ^ (Danish) CSC-stjerne på omfattende dopingprogram i 2003, Politiken, August 19 2006.
- ^ Extensive doping alleged for Hamilton
- ^ "As ban ends, US cyclist Hamilton facing another probe," AFP, September 14, 2006
[edit] External links
- Tyler Hamilton Official Website
- Tyler Hamilton Foundation Website
- Text of decision by International Court for Arbitration in Sport
- Tyler Hamilton's Last Stand Cycling News, February 15, 2006]
- Hamilton and Ullrich linked to Operación Puerto
 |
| 1896-1908 | Rudolph Lewis | Harry Stenqvist | Henry P. C. Hansen | Attilio Pavesi | 1936-1992 | Miguel Indurain | Viatcheslav Ekimov | Tyler Hamilton |
| Riders on Tinkoff Credit Systems |
|---|
|
Elio Aggiano | Pavel Brutt | Ilya Chernetskiy | Salvatore Commesso | Daniele Contrini | Tyler Hamilton | Danilo Hondo | Mikhail Ignatiev | Serguei Klimov | Ruggero Marzoli | Anton Mindlin | Evgeni Petrov | Ivan Rovny | Alexander Serov | Ricardo Serrano | Nikolai Trussov | Steffen Weigold |
| Manager |
| Stefano Feltrin |
