Infinite cyclic subgroups of hyperbolic groups are undistorted

If $g$ has infinite order in a hyperbolic group, the map $n\mapsto g^n$ is a quasi-isometric embedding of the integers. Equivalently $|g^n|\ge c|n|-C$ for some $c>0$. This is the homogeneous quasigeodesic theorem: local-to-global control of metric geodesics in a hyperbolic Cayley graph gives a quasigeodesic orbit for a suitable conjugate of a positive power; undoing conjugation and passing between consecutive powers changes only uniform constants. It implies $\tau (g)>0$. The theorem and its hypotheses are given in Löh, Theorem 6.5.9. It is not true for arbitrary finitely generated groups, as the Baumslag-Solitar group relation $ab{a}^{-1}=b^3$ shows.