Former Lance Armstrong teammate describes doping culture — Transcript

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1. 0:00Lance Armstrong is one of the greatest
2. 0:02athletes the world has ever seen winning
3. 0:04an incredible seven consecutive tour to
4. 0:07front titles before his retirement but
5. 0:09for years his achievements have been
6. 0:11marred by Whispers that he was a drug
7. 0:12cheat well there Whispers no more
8. 0:15earlier this year the US anti-doping
9. 0:17agency charged Armstrong with using
10. 0:19drugs banned him for life and stripped
11. 0:21his seven tour titles even though
12. 0:23Armstrong has strenuously maintained his
13. 0:26innocence the ban was partly based on
14. 0:28testimony from Armstrong's team mates
15. 0:30among them Tyler Hamilton he's just
16. 0:32written a book called The Secret race
17. 0:34Which documents his own doping and
18. 0:35cheating and Blows the Whistle on
19. 0:37Armstrong too Tyler Hamilton joined me
20. 0:40from New York Tyler Hamilton was it
21. 0:43possible to succeed in your era without
22. 0:46doping um you know if you wanted to
23. 0:48compete in in in my era
24. 0:51um you needed to dope you needed to dope
25. 0:55um it's it's unfortunate it's sad to say
26. 0:58uh and hopefully that isn't the case
27. 1:01today but um but back then you know you
28. 1:04could you could ride in the middle of a
29. 1:06pelaton without doping you you know and
30. 1:08be a pelaton Phill or pack fill as they
31. 1:11called it um maybe finish in the back of
32. 1:13the group but it was you know hard to it
33. 1:16would I found it almost impossible to
34. 1:18compete uh clean when did you discover
35. 1:21that somebody as prominent as Lance
36. 1:23Armstrong was chating um the first time
37. 1:25Lance and I talked about it was in um
38. 1:281998 uh we became team te Ates in
39. 1:30'98 and um we talked
40. 1:34about doping then the first time I saw
41. 1:37him dope was in 99 you know I saw him
42. 1:39dope in 200 in the year 2000 um we were
43. 1:45teammates through 2001 and then we were
44. 1:48uh competitors after that give me an
45. 1:50example of the sorts of things that you
46. 1:52and Lance Armstrong and others were
47. 1:54doing we were you know we were um taking
48. 1:57EPO which uh helps boost hematocrit and
49. 2:01hemoglobin we were um took
50. 2:05testosterone those those were the big
51. 2:07things you know majority the big thing
52. 2:09was was EPO um then in the year 2000 I
53. 2:13uh blood doped for the first time with
54. 2:16with Lance Armstrong and a teammate what
55. 2:18do EPO and blood doping actually do in
56. 2:20terms of your performance yeah basically
57. 2:23it increases your hematocrite hemoglobin
58. 2:25B basically you can breathe better uh
59. 2:28you have more red blood cells which
60. 2:30carry oxygen to the muscle so you know
61. 2:32the better you can breathe the faster
62. 2:34you can ride how did you all avoid
63. 2:37detection um a lot of different ways one
64. 2:40way was you know the team doctors would
65. 2:42tell you you know what and how much of a
66. 2:45certain product you could take and and
67. 2:47how many days the testers could still
68. 2:49detect it for which you know I I called
69. 2:51in the book uh like the glow time you
70. 2:53know how long you were
71. 2:55glowing um so with each product you had
72. 2:58a different glow time and depending on
73. 3:00how much you took and you know that
74. 3:01you're very
75. 3:03sophisticated uh teams with sop
76. 3:06sophisticated doctors and you know if
77. 3:08you follow their rules you would uh you
78. 3:11would pass the controls you know I
79. 3:12passed several hundred controls over my
80. 3:15career Lance Armstrong has denied
81. 3:17cheating and pointed out that he passed
82. 3:18scores of drug tests during his career
83. 3:21he says he accuses of people who are
84. 3:23lying out of spite or for personal gain
85. 3:26what do you say to that well you know if
86. 3:28I reti I I passed several hundred
87. 3:30controls and if I retired in you know
88. 3:33July of 2004 I would have I would have
89. 3:36been a clean Rider or known as a clean
90. 3:38Rider too but you know I wasn't I was
91. 3:40far from it are there records that back
92. 3:43up what you say is it simply your word
93. 3:45against his or is it bigger than that uh
94. 3:48it's it's much bigger than that and I
95. 3:50understand the denial you know because I
96. 3:51I denied it for what six seven years um
97. 3:55it's kind of your first reaction and um
98. 3:59you know
99. 4:01it's it's diff it's difficult to tell
100. 4:03the truth but I can tell you that it
101. 4:05feels good you know I I kept the secret
102. 4:08for way too long you know I lied to my
103. 4:10parents to my brother my sister my
104. 4:12friends co-workers and um you know
105. 4:16enough was enough it took its toll it
106. 4:18was very difficult to hold in and you
107. 4:19know I was prepared to take it to the
108. 4:21grave but uh fortunately I was uh I was
109. 4:25pulled in to to testify in a federal
110. 4:28case and and that was was my uh you know
111. 4:32that was lucky for me and it sounds kind
112. 4:34of funny to say you say you'd kept it a
113. 4:36secret for a long time what made you
114. 4:38decide to speak out and cooperate I was
115. 4:41called by the FED a federal investigator
116. 4:43by the name of Jeff ninski and uh forced
117. 4:46to basically I went in front of the
118. 4:48grand jury and uh told the told the
119. 4:51whole truth you know if not it's a
120. 4:52criminal if you don't tell the truth you
121. 4:54can go to prison um so again I went in
122. 4:58kicking and screaming and you know
123. 5:00didn't want to didn't want to break the
124. 5:02Code of
125. 5:04Silence
126. 5:06and I answer their questions and I
127. 5:08started I started
128. 5:11by the information was kind of trickling
129. 5:13out the truths were trickling out and
130. 5:15then after about 15 minutes you know it
131. 5:17just poured out of me and uh it felt so
132. 5:20good little did I know it felt great I
133. 5:23was dreading it but it felt fantastic
134. 5:25and uh from that from that point from
135. 5:27that day on that was about 2 years ago
136. 5:31um I knew the right thing to do is just
137. 5:33tell the truth and the whole truth and
138. 5:36what do you think about Lance Armstrong
139. 5:38taking the Mar's approach and saying he
140. 5:40can't be bothered to fight doping
141. 5:41allegations anymore I mean from his side
142. 5:45I I understand their their strategy uh
143. 5:48because I don't think it would be a good
144. 5:50idea to fight this in court you know I'm
145. 5:52only one of the witnesses you know
146. 5:54there's there's up to 15 or 20 other
147. 5:58Witnesses similar to to me that have the
148. 6:00same stories and I think it would really
149. 6:01be an ugly ugly situation I think it
150. 6:04would be a slow and very
151. 6:07painful few weeks of uh Rider test rider
152. 6:11and staff testimony but I would like him
153. 6:14to some someday you know come clean and
154. 6:18tell tell the truth because I think you
155. 6:21I I I know how hard it is to hold in
156. 6:23these lies and I I feel like I can't
157. 6:26imagine that it's easy to be in his
158. 6:28shoes today is it possible that he and
159. 6:30some others legitimately feel like it
160. 6:32wasn't cheating because everybody was
161. 6:34doing it um yeah I mean there was one
162. 6:36time a point in my career when I felt
163. 6:38the same way I felt the same way
164. 6:42um looking back now you know it's it's
165. 6:45clear as day that you know that's not
166. 6:47the case there are so many cycling fans
167. 6:50around the world can we trust now that
168. 6:52the sport is clean uh I do know it's a
169. 6:55lot a lot cleaner uh which is very
170. 6:58encouraging um I know all the doping
171. 7:00controls are are getting better and
172. 7:02better um and there's a lot more
173. 7:05cooperation between the Riders and the
174. 7:07anti-doping associations but um from
175. 7:10what I hear it's not it's it's still not
176. 7:13clean it's but much much better which is
177. 7:15encouraging Tyler Hamilton thank you
178. 7:17very much for talking to us yeah thank
179. 7:19you for having me I appreciate it and um
180. 7:22hope to speak to you again take care