The Secret Race cover art

The Secret Race

Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

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About this listen

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2012.

On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. The two had met five years before while Coyle was writing his best-selling book Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force. But this time, Tyler had something else on his mind. He finally wanted to come clean, about everything: the doping, the lying, his years as Lance Armstrong's teammate on U.S. Postal,, and his decade spent running from the truth. "I'm sorry," he told Coyle. "It just feels so good to be able to talk about this. I've been quiet for so many years."

Over the next 18 months, Hamilton would tell his story - and his sport's story - in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before.

The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. It's a world populated by unbelievably driven - and some flawed - characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

©2012 Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle (P)2012 Random House AudioGo
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All stars
Most relevant
great read /listen. Tyler/Coylr shine a light into dark places and Sean Runnettes narration is top notch

Superb

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like a thriller this is gripping stuff if you have followed cycling/TdF and especially if you have read Lance Armstrong's books

cracking listen

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A classic insight to a now honest man but the sounds of it and a great methodology to coping strategies and mechanisms to life.

Great book

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If you like bike racing and are interested in the professional scene then this is a must have book. It's not clear what motivates the Tyler to talk so openly about the past. Perhaps it is a come clean attitude or perhaps it is to make money as the walls of the sport have come tumbling down in the last few years. Can you be sure that this is a work of fact, NO, as the writer and his compatriots have lied so many times in the last 15 years? The number of mentions of Armstrong point to the fact that Tyler & the publisher are keen to make money on the back of the most important story in sport in the last 2 years.

Still it is an insightful and thought provoking read into professional sport and the pressure and temptations that comes with it.

Inside Bike racing and the myths of the last 15yrs

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A really great honest book that exposes the pressures to perform or go home and the remedy. I’ve always respected Tyler Hamilton, I obviously don’t know him but his honest story (which I hope is true) increases that.

Please read this if you don’t understand doping

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