2008 Rock Racing and More

Hamilton to Rock Racing

Tyler Hamilton has reportedly signed with Rock Racing for 2008. Several sources have confirmed that the team inked a deal with the one-time grand tour contender and that he plans to race with the UCI continental squad in the coming season.

Hamilton is ready to ride again.

photo: Agence France Presse (file photo)

VeloNews requested comment from both Hamilton and team owner Michael Ball, but neither immediately responded.

Hamilton's career wins have thus far included the 2004 Olympic time trial, the 2003 Liège-Bastogne-Liège and stages of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. He tested positive for blood doping in 2004 and was suspended for two years. He returned to professional cycling this past spring with the Russian-Italian Tinkoff Credit Systems.

Hamilton's term with Tinkoff was rocky, after a tooth infection derailed him at April's Tour de Georgia, then he was dropped from his team's Giro squad following a La Gazzetta dello Sport story that linked him to the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal.

Hamilton said that team owner Oleg Tinkov then asked him to sign a contract "with very different financial terms than my existing contract. Since I did not think this was fair, I did not agree." In a July posting on his personal web site, Hamilton said he planned to file suit to enforce the provisions of the original deal, although there are no records of that suit actually having been filed. Specific details of the contract dispute have not been disclosed by either party.

Hamilton's last race was at the USA Cycling national time trial championship in Greenville, South Carolina, where he placed sixth, 49 seconds behind winner Dave Zabriskie of CSC.

Should Hamilton don the skull-and-wings logo of Rock Racing, he would join former ProTour riders such as three-time U.S. national champion Freddie Rodriguez, Colombian former U.S. Postal Service and Phonak rider Victor Hugo Peña and 2002 world time trial champion Santiago Botero.

Other notable Rock Racing signings for 2008 include Michael Creed, Doug Ollerenshaw and Cesar Grajales. Ball, who built a fortune with the edgy Rock & Republic jeans company, hopes to build a team capable of winning the Tour de France.

Hamilton's signing would also reunite him with Rock Racing team director Frankie Andreu. The Americans rode as teammates at U.S. Postal Service on Lance Armstrong's Tour de France-winning teams in 1999 and 2000 before Andreu retired from racing.

Hamilton left U.S. Postal for Team CSC in 2002, where he finished second with a fractured shoulder at his first Giro d'Italia. The following year Hamilton won both Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour de Romandie and was poised as a Tour de France contender before breaking his collarbone during a nasty stage 1 pileup. He went on to win stage 16 with a 142 km solo breakaway, and placed fourth overall.

The following season Hamilton switched over to Phonak and again entered the Tour as a favorite, but again hit he pavement during the first week and eventually abandoned the race. He looked to salvage his season with an Olympic medal and a shot at the Vuelta a España overall before positive tests at both events brought him under fire with the sport's anti-doping agencies. Though he was cleared of his Olympic positive when the lab in Athens, Greece, incorrectly froze his B blood sample, Hamilton was later suspended based on samples taken at the Vuelta.

Hamilton mounted a lengthy and expensive defense, losing his initial hearing on a 2-1 split decision. He then appealed his case to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, where he lost in a unanimous 3-0 decision.

Rock Racing will hold its first team camp of 2008 in January in Malibu.