Well, it looks like our Boy Scout has gotten himself into trouble again. Tyler Hamilton has retired after testing positive for the steroid DHEA. My first thought was confirmation that the Boy Scout image I believed for so many years was actually a ruse. Then I read his reason for the mishap.
Mr. Hamilton says he took an over the counter herbal supplement that contained the banned substance. Then he let us know about his family history, his grandmother’s suicide. Take the family history combined with the way his life has gone sideways since his 2004 Olympic gold medal and you have a good story. I actually found myself nodding in belief. Then I thought.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
I waited to post until I read a post from Dan over at Rant Your Head Off. Dan has forgotten more about doping than I’ll ever know. Dan quite literally wrote the book on doping in sports. What I do know is DHEA is pretty fay up the steroid cascade. A building block that can be used if you are not on the straight and narrow. If you are not a Boy Scout.
So for now, I will not buy into the Hamilton saga. I find it hard to Believe. If true, I find it disgraceful to use family tragedy to build sympathy for cheating. So to avoid the downward spiral that thinking about Tyler can cause, I’ll take a pass and focus on today’s Amstel Gold race.
Posted by pelotonjim 