heres some more news from daily camera.com
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Hamilton pedals through pain
Ex-CU athlete hopes to 'survive' Tour
By Susan Bickelhaupt, Boston Globe
July 8, 2003
Tyler Hamilton said some of the competitors did double takes when they rode next to him in the second stage of the Tour de France Monday.
"Most people thought I had gone home," the former University of Colorado athlete said. Which was a likely assumption after he suffered what appeared to be a Tour-ending broken collarbone in a crash in Sunday's race.
Yet while even Hamilton said he wasn't sure if he could continue, after almost a year of training, and two first-place finishes in European races in the spring, he decided about an hour before Monday's race to try to ride through the pain.
Team doctors bandaged Hamilton's upper body in a kind of cast — "I must have had five pounds of tape on me" — and Hamilton took off with the 196 riders on the 127-mile race northwest of Paris.
Australian Baden Cooke won the stage in 5 hours, 6 minutes, 33 seconds. Hamilton finished with the main pack and was given the same time and is eighth overall, two places ahead of four-time defending champion Lance Armstrong, who finished in the same group Monday. Australian Bradley McGee is the overall leader.
"I'm still in quite a bit of pain, and I'll admit, today was really unpleasant," he said. "But the good thing about the break is that it's still together, and not separated. So if it can heal 5 percent every day, maybe I can survive."
Hamilton said he was motivated not just by his successful spring, but by his showing in the time trial on the first day of the Tour, when he edged Armstrong by one second to finish sixth.
"The prologue was a good gauge of where my fitness level was," he said. "So (the injury) was a tough pill to swallow."
Hamilton, who went flying over his handlebars in a crash that involved about 35 riders in the sprint finish Sunday, said he was hoping he suffered only a bruise.
Then he saw the X-ray, which showed two fractures.
"I thought it was over," said Hamilton, who slept about four hours at night as he mulled his fate.
When he got up in the morning, he decided to suit up.
"I just felt like this was my year," said Hamilton, who was going to be the lead rider on the CSC team. "I didn't even think I'd finish (Monday's stage), but I decided to take it one mile at a time."
The other riders weren't the only ones surprised to hear Hamilton decided to stay in the race. His wife, Haven, said she spoke to him from their home in Spain Sunday night and "he just told me he'd see how he feels," she said. "But he was devastated, so I was surprised."
Tyler's father, Bill, said he was in meetings Monday morning and assumed his son had pulled out of the race.
When he got home and learned Tyler had raced, "I was floored. This time it looked like it was all over.
"The sad part is that he was in such good shape," added Bill Hamilton. "He was going to be a contender, but now at best he'll be a survivor."
The tour covers mostly rolling hills the rest of this week, but enters the Alps Saturday, when Hamilton's "5 percent" hope will get a true test.
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how tough is this guy , what an inspiration
http://www.cyclingforums.com/t467644.html
