The 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award has been won by former Tour de France rider Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle with “The Secret Race”, which exposes the culture of doping in professional cycling. Hamilton was a time-trial gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics but subsequently received a two-year ban after a failed drug test at the 2004 Vuelta a Espana.
After a successful return to riding, he was suspended for eight years and forced into retirement in 2009 for a similar offence. A team-mate of Lance Armstrong on the US Postal Service team during the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tour de France, Hamilton lifts the lid on his time in the sport in a book which the judges hailed as “a landmark publication”.
Hamilton said he was "proud of writing it but not proud of what's in it" after winning the award. Hamilton spent 18 months working with Coyle as he came clean about the doping, the lying and his decade spent running from the truth.
The Secret Race is the third cycling book to win the award following Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride in 1990 and Armstrong's "It's Not About The Bike" 10 years later. Coyle today paid credit to Kimmage, David Walsh and other journalists who had battled to expose Armstrong's doping in the years before The Secret Race helped to accelerate the American's fall from grace.
William Hill Sports Book of the Year shortlist
Fibber In The Heat, by Miles Jupp
That Near-Death Thing - Inside The TT: The World's Most Dangerous Race, by Rick Broadbent
Running With The Kenyans - Discovering The Secrets Of The Fastest People On Earth, by Adharanand Finn
The Secret Race - Inside The Hidden World Of The Tour De France: Doping, Cover-ups, And Winning At All Costs, by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan
A Life Without Limits - A World Champion's Journey, by Chrissie Wellington with Michael Aylwin
Shot And A Ghost: A Year In The Brutal World Of Professional Squash, by James Willstrop with Rod Gilmour