![]() ![]() ![]() They talk in code using pre-paid (and therefore untraceable) mobile phones. ![]() At times the narrative reads more like something out of a spy novel. ![]() (E Poe, geddit?)ĭetails of the nefarious practices employed both within Armstrong’s US Postal squad and the wider peloton come thick and fast. And, after Armstrong, the most frequently referenced person in the text is Edgar Allan Poe – ‘Edgar’ being the riders’ code for EPO. There is no selection of childhood-to-retirement photos gracing the middle pages. The cover features not the traditional head shot of the subject, but a smaller image of Hamilton racing against Armstrong, recognising the truth that this book is as much about Lance as it is about Tyler. This is an autobiography in name only, as it defies most conventions of the genre. So what is this book? It is a no-holds-barred account which shatters the omertà, the code of silence, which has hung over cycling for decades like a thick fog and provides revelation upon revelation about the extent to which doping infected cycling during his career. Nor is it a normal tell-all exposé. It isn’t even a normal confessional. In that vein – now there’s a doping-related pun for you – The Secret Race is not a normal autobiography. As Tyler Hamilton relates it, ‘not normal’ was one of Lance Armstrong‘s stock phrases for commenting on something unexpected or out of the ordinary. ![]()
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