The Secret Race

Reviews / Votes

Brilliantly detailed and wholly convincing: with Coyle's skill and Hamilton's honesty, the book was always likely to be excellent. This is no generalised or theoretical exploration of a doping culture but a forensic description of how it worked. Armstrong used to say there would always be sceptics who didn't believe in his story, but now the sceptics are those who, ostrich-like, continue to believe. They should be compelled to read this book, and though the collision with reality will cause them to shudder, the good news is that they will be riveted by a well-told story and will be the better for knowing the truth. -- David Walsh * Sunday Times * The broadest, most accessible look at cycling's drug problem to date. * New York Times * The news leaks about The Secret Race have vastly undersold its importance. Tyler Hamilton's book is a historic, definitive indictment of cycling's culture of doping during the Armstrong era. Here's the reality. The Secret Race isn't just a game changer for the Armstrong myth. It's the game ender. No one can read this book with an open mind and still credibly believe that Armstrong didn't dope. It's impossible. That doesn't change the fact that he survived cancer and helped millions of people through Livestrong, but the myth of the clean-racing hero who came back from the dead is, well, dead. The book is the holy grail for disillusioned cycling fans in search of answers. The book's power is in the collected details, all strung together in a story that is told with such clear-eyed conviction that you never doubt its veracity. * Outside magazine * Astonishingly candid... an extraordinary confessional. -- Matt Dickinson * The Times * Riveting... Just about every significant detail in the USADA evidence is here. And it is brilliantly conveyed by an insider who can see both sides of the story: the institutional corruption, which eats away at the culprits, as well as the crippling pressure on riders to conform. We can expect plenty more books to be published on this conspiracy, for it is arguably the most audacious ever plotted in the world of sport. But it feels as though Hamilton's is likely to become the definitive work on the subject. -- Simon Briggs * Daily Telegraph * The book that finally broke Lance Armstrong. * Sport magazine * The mysterious world of cycling holds a certain fascination in the public consciousness - now more than ever following the recent home-grown success in the sport. The Secret Race lifts the lid on that world and delivers a shocking and jaw-droppingly frank account of what it's like to compete at the highest level. * Graham Sharpe, William Hill Sports Book of the Year * A landmark publication... absolutely brilliant. The Secret Race stood out because it fundamentally changed the sport it described. I wish it hadn't had to be written, but it is a book that has to be read. * John Inverdale * The insight into the sporting mindset is uncanny; the detail unforgettable. A gruesomely compelling instant classic. * Sunday Telegraph, Sports Books of the Year * The book inspired in me not surprise so much as the occasional jolt of shock at the grimy practicalities and the odd drop of my jaw at the means Hamilton says that he, Lance Armstrong and others used to stay ahead of the testers and the police... A deep insight into the evidence that Armstrong refused to confront when he opted out of arbitration in the case that the US Anti-Doping Agency had built against him and his associates. -- William Fotheringham * Observer *