This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton rocked the world of professional

cycling and exposed the doping culture surrounding the sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong.

As one of the world's top-ranked cyclist and a member of Lance Armstrong's inner circle,

Hamilton has quite an amazing

story of his own and is here to share it with us. Let's take a listen. My name's Tyler Hamilton.

I live here in Missoula, Montana. Grew up in Marble Ed, Massachusetts, great family, older brother,

older sister, loved the outdoors and loved to spend time out in nature.

First, it was my love for skiing that kind of got me excited being outdoors and became a ski racer.

After an accident with the University of Colorado ski team, I broke my back and then started my cycling career kind of by accident.

It happened fast. I was a bit of a late bloomer in cycling, but I've always had like a high pain threshold.

I think I was born with it. I don't know. My parents are tough. My grandparents were tough. So I think that was the biggest asset that I had as a bike racer just, you know, that never give up mentality and just, you know, don't listen to the pain.

Growing up in Marbley, Massachusetts in the 70s was pretty awesome.

I was born in 71.

Yeah, my parents didn't really put many demands on my brother or sister at all.

You know, I mean, they like just trying to do well in school and working hard.

They liked us competing in sports if we were interested in it.

But whether or not we were successful in sports, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. You know, the most important thing for them was, you know, being honest, being a good sport, and just being, you know, transparent. My dad said if we did have a family crest, it would probably be, you know, honesty. And yeah, I got in trouble here and there, but it was, I got in a lot of trouble but it was I got in a lot of trouble when I was

dishonest a lot of trouble it was really exciting to get my first pro contract I signed it in what

the fall of 1994 it was the the original postal team it was under a different title sponsor then but it was original U.S. postal team. It was under a different title sponsor then,

but it was the original U.S. postal team.

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