Hamilton – Too nice to beat Lance?

by John Wilcockson

• June 27, 2004
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But “Gentleman” Tyler Hamilton has growing support in his quest to win the Tour

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By John Wilcockson

Hamilton – Too nice to beat Lance?

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When Tyler Hamilton’s name is mentioned as a potential winner of theTour de France, the suggestion is usually followed by the qualification:But he’s too nice. That’s not to say that nice guys never win the Tour.

For example, there are few cyclists as gentlemanly as Miguel Induráin,and didn’t he win the race five times? The question of “niceness” comesup with the well-mannered Hamilton because people do not see the same killerinstinct in him as they do in defending champion Lance Armstrong.

Hamilton is a late developer, a little like Induráin. In hisfirst six Tours, the great Spanish rider finished in the top 20 only twice(17th and 10th), as did Hamilton (13th and 15th). Induráin won hisseventh Tour with the full support of the powerful Reynolds team. As forHamilton, in his seventh Tour last year, he finished fourth. But if hehadn’t broken his collarbone on stage 1, he might well have challengedArmstrong and Jan Ullrich for the win.

Asked whether he would have contested the victory without the brokenshoulder, Hamilton replied, “That’s a hard question to answer. Lance andUllrich seemed like they were always a step above everybody else. I thinkI could have been on the podium, you know. But to win, that’s a differentstory. It’s hard to say, really hard to say….

“Even with the injury I felt pretty good into the Alps. Then, in thefirst mountain stage, I was just starting to lose a little bit. I feltthat it was all the pain I’d been going through was starting to catch up.But after the first rest day [when I was on my back from a pinched nerve]I didn’t feel that good… not great. Then the second rest day, I just restedthe whole day…. So, yeah, I think I could have been on the podium.”

Knowing that he still finished fourth at the 2003 Tour, following secondplace at the 2002 Giro d’Italia (with a broken bone in his other shoulder),Hamilton has the confidence to shoot for the overall win — especially ashe has the 100-percent support of a Phonak team that proved its efficacyby helping him win the Tour de Romandie in May.

Phonak, though, still has to prove itself at the world’s biggest race.The Swiss team has never contested the Tour, but its Spanish directeursportif Alvaro Pino, a former winner of the Vuelta a España, directedthe Kelme team at a number of Tours. Also, most of Hamilton’s potentialTour teammates, including Oskar Camenzind, Nicolas Jalabert, Oscar Sevillaand Alex Zülle, are veterans of the French race.

Perhaps the man who knows Hamilton the best is Bjarne Riis, the American’steam boss during his past two seasons at CSC. When asked if he thinks thatHamilton has the mentality to win the Tour, Riis said, “Mentality, youknow, this is not something you can know before you have the yellow jerseyand you’re sitting on a good lead. Until that point is a long way, a longhard way.

“If it will happen, this is something that will happen just suddenly,like this,” he adds, snapping his fingers. And could a team like CSC orPhonak rally around a Tour leader and control the race day after day?

Riis was sure that could happen.

“I saw it when I won the Tour in ’96 at Telekom. They also said theywouldn’t be able to ride at the front every day, but they did, when theyhad the jersey. It’s something that comes to the team, stimulates the team,and everyone just gets strong. This is a mental thing.”

Hamilton – Too nice to beat Lance?

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Another insider who knows both Armstrong and Hamilton very well is theirformer U.S. Postal teammate, Christian Vande Velde, who is racing for LibertySeguros this year. Vande Velde said of Hamilton that nobody could be aperfect gentleman and do what he does. In elaborating on that statement,Vande Velde said, “Tyler definitely has a Jekyll and Hyde personality.He’s still nice and we still talk on the bike, but when it’s going [hard]he can really push himself almost further than anyone I’ve seen in my entirelife.”

Comparing the mental toughness of his two former teammates, Vande Veldesaid, “Tyler hasn’t really been put to the test like Lance has. Being theunderdog is one thing, and being the favorite coming into a race and deliveringon that is another. Tyler hasn’t really been a favorite, except in Romandiemaybe, and Romandie and the Tour de France are two different things.”

For Hamilton, winning Romandie was confirmation that his training schedulewas working as he hoped. “I’m not doing the Lance and Ullrich approachwhere there’s one big peak. I try to come up a little bit in the spring,then I take a break,” he said. “I take [a week’s] total break from thebike, which those guys don’t do. It’s good for my head and good for mybody to take a rest. I’ll come down a little, lose that top end, and thenI slowly build up for the Tour.”

Last year, during his final preparation, people were surprised thatHamilton rode the Dauphiné Libéré at the back of therace. But that was all part of his plan: to ride a hard race to build uphis endurance without digging into his reserves. That way he wouldn’t peaktoo early. That’s especially important this year, when the truly difficultstages do not begin until the Tour’s 14th day.

Hamilton knows that by that point in the race both he and his Phonakteammates will need to be at their peaks. He also knows that will alsobe the case with his friend and rival, Armstrong. “He’s won it for thelast five years, but he’s also had eight of his teammates there for himall the time until they can’t push their pedals any longer,” said Hamilton.“I know what it has taken for Lance to win the Tour — certainly he hasto be on top, top form — and so do I.”

On the bike, Hamilton is as tough as they come.

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But that original question still remains: Does the mild-mannered Hamiltonhave the drive, the single-minded determination, of a winner? Can he pickhimself up off the floor like Armstrong did last year at Luz-
Ardiden, to win the race? Well, just listen to what Hamilton said aboutthat: “When I was a kid, I never liked to be beaten. If I got beaten, Icame back the next time and tried harder. I never liked to let people seeI was hurting, either. And if they knew I was hurting I didn’t like togive up, because if they thought, ‘Okay, I’ve got him,’ I wouldn’t go downwithout a fight.”

With two such gutsy competitors as Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton,this should be a great Tour.

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