say it aint so Tyler

Maybe not much of a story, but Hamilton effectively receives a lifetime ban:

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cyclin...ory?id=4264141

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Olympic champion Tyler Hamilton received an eight-year ban from cycling Tuesday, all but ending his drug-tainted career after he admitted to taking a steroid.

The penalty handed down by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency came two months after Hamilton acknowledged taking an herbal product to combat depression, knowing it included a steroid.

"There's nothing to fight about," Hamilton said in an April interview with The Associated Press.

Hamilton told ESPN.com he chose not to contest whatever sanction USADA imposed in order to move forward and deal with his clinical depression. He is seeing a therapist regularly and said he feels "a lot better" than when he went public with the circumstances of his anti-doping violation two months ago.

"Whether [the suspension] was three months, six months or eight years, I had decided to retire,'" Hamilton told ESPN.com's Bonnie D. Ford in a phone interview from his Boston-area home Tuesday. "The actual number isn't that significant. I came up against something that was more serious than I thought. I needed to take care of it, and I am taking care of it."

This was Hamilton's second anti-doping violation. At age 38, an eight-year ban for Hamilton is effectively a lifetime ban, said Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA.

It is "an assurance that he is penalized for what would have been the remainder of his competitive cycling career," Tygart said.

It brings to an end a career that included a win at the 2004 Olympics that was overshadowed by a blood doping scandal. The victory was followed shortly by a positive doping test, but Hamilton retained the gold medal because the backup "B" sample could not be positively tested.

A month later, however, he tested positive again and served a two-year suspension that ended early in 2007.

He long denied blood doping, though on the latest positive test, he denied nothing.

"I knew it was banned," Hamilton said.

Some of his advisers told him to fight the latest positive but he decided against it, instead deciding to focus on battling his depression. Hamilton said going through a divorce and his mother's breast cancer diagnosis made things worse in recent months.

Hamilton said he intends to continue working with his foundation that supports people with multiple sclerosis and wants to find a way to help others with depression, especially athletes.

"I can't tell you how many phone calls and e-mails I've had," Hamilton told ESPN.com. "It's really opened my eyes. Athletes are always putting things off until the offseason, or maybe when they retire. Maybe this mistake I made will be for someone else's good."