Disgraced Hamilton contrasts sharply with unselfish Pan-Mass cyclists

Kerrie (Berg) Babo of Lynn had never heard of Tyler Hamilton until she had occasion to Google him Thursday after news broke that he’d been stripped of the gold medal he won for cycling in the 2004 Olympics.So when she was asked how she could reconcile the idea of riding in last weekend’s Pan-Mass Challenge in memory of her mother, Phyllis Berg, who died of cancer last year, with the idea of Hamilton abusing his body with illegal substances (transfused blood), she didn’t have an answer.There’s a world of difference, of course, between competitive cycling, where someone such as Hamilton might be tempted to use transfusions to boost his red blood cell count and increase endurance, and riding 119 miles in the blazing sun to raise money for cancer research. Even Babo is quick to point out that the Pan-Mass “is not a race; it’s a ride.”But in the end, it’s a question of priorities and the price we’re willing to pay for glory, as opposed to the price we’re prepared to pay for love and compassion.Babo never rode a bike until last April, when she bought one and started to ride. She was still dealing with her mother’s death from stomach cancer last September. Her uncle coaxed her to join him in the challenge.Hamilton has been riding since his school days, and even before he chose to cheat, he’d reached tremendous heights. Three times, he rode alongside seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, and in 2000, he actually finished fourth.Apparently it wasn’t good enough. And if you listened to him during last year’s interview on “60 Minutes,” it was never good enough. He was a serial cheater, which – when we found out – was a real letdown. He’d been portrayed not only as heroic (riding the Tour through a dislocated shoulder) but as a vocal proponent of cleaning up his sport ? even to the point of repeatedly accusing Armstrong of cheating (a charge he still maintains is true).For him, when he crashed, he crashed hard.The idea of pumping one’s body full of foreign substances (even via autologous transfusions, where your own blood is frozen and then thawed for doping purposes) just to get extra edge is totally foreign to riders like Babo.”I honestly don’t think of things like that,” she said. “I’m more concerned about how I take care of my own body. My mom died of stomach cancer, so I’m concerned with putting good food into my body, and to taking care of it.”Where there’s corruption in Hamilton’s world, there’s purity in what Babo, and the others, accomplished last weekend. They rode. They finished. They raised money to battle cancer. They heard and saw cancer survivors all along the route, cheering them on, holding up signs saying that because of them, they were still alive.”It’s an amazing and life-enriching experience,” Babo said. “You see things like that, and it makes all the riding, especially considering how hot it was, worthwhile.”Listening to Babo talk, in wonderment, about her first-ever Pan-Mass Challenge, it was hard not to get even angrier at the idea of a world-class athlete who so mistrusted his talent and physical conditioning that he had to cheat to overcome it.For Babo, every hill she mastered, every rest stop she reached (she said she literally narrowed it down from rest stop to rest stop to blunt the enormity of riding 119 miles), was a new and awe-inspiring experience. There’s no room for cynicism in her world.So as Hamilton, once again, has a spotlight shine on his lack of sportsmanship and ethics, ask yourself who you’d rather be today: A disgraced ex-Olympic hero? Or a woman who set out to challenge herself, knowing what a challenge that was ? and won?Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].