Tyler Hamilton announces retirement: Will focus on dealing with clinical depression

Rock Racing team management held a press conference this morning that was billed as a “major announcement”. Given the history of the team and all that has happened to them, this could have been anything – there were rumors about Tyler Hamilton, funding issues, past scandals with DS Rudy Penvenage and talk about Jan Ullrich having some involvement with the team.

In advance of the call, Bonnie Ford over at ESPN had already broken the story: “American cyclist Tyler Hamilton will hold a teleconference Friday to announce he is retiring after testing positive for the steroid DHEA, which he said he knowingly ingested in an over-the-counter herbal antidepressant.”

Since the story was already out, why have a press conference? What more was there to say? I couldn’t help but think that this seriously puts the future of the team in doubt.

This is, of course, not Tyler Hamilton’s first brush with doping. He doped with someone else’s blood and tried to pass of the genetic markers as an unborn twin residing within his body. Before it all fell down, Hamilton became one of strongest American cyclists ever. What we didn’t know is that behind all of the wins, he was suffering what was, at times, debilitating clinical depression.

He was formally diagnosed with the disease in September 2003, but commented in the press conference that he has been experiencing symptoms of the disease for much of his life. He added that his sister, mother and grandmother all fought the disease and that his grandmother committed suicide when his mother was 13 years old.

There was no word in the conference about the future of the Rock Racing team. No one asked the question (guess that I should have), but I wonder how a potential sponsor would view this? Isolated incident? Team director should have pursued getting him help?

Only time will tell.

We wish all the best to Tyler in getting help with this illness. My life has been affected by those with psychological instances, so I understand how it can make you do things that don’t seemingly make sense, even if they do at the time.

Tags: american cyclists, clinical depression, committed suicide, dhea, doubt, espn, ford, genetic markers, herbal antidepressant, Jan Ullrich, Michael Ball, mother and grandmother, Rock Racing, rudy, scandals, team director, team management, teleconference, Tyler Hamilton