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Livestrong, cycling and the Armstong legacy

Lance Armstrong's legacy may be to rip world cycling apart as he continues to ignore doping allegations made by former US Postal teammates and staff (Image: AFP)
Roar Pro
5th March, 2013
6

Robin Williams did a routine during his 2002 DVD ‘Live on Broadway’ that talked about the French drug administration’s fastidiousness when it came to Lance Armstrong’s urine samples.

It struck a chord (and some laughs) in a nation who believed in Armstrong over a bunch of fussy bureaucrats who seemed to be more interested in cynical gossip than hard facts.

Armstrong was not only a cyclist but he was an institution. Livestrong, the charity that he set up to help cancer sufferers, has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in support of people with the disease.

I highly doubt that Livestrong, Williams or any of his other famous friends knew what was really happening behind the closed doors of the hotel rooms during race meets, but they were prepared to take Lance at his word.

Williams of course will not be hurt by the scandal – he is a comedian and the joke was funny – just erroneous. Nor will countless other celebs that Armstrong has posed with over the years, though that scene from ‘Dodgeball’ now has a horribly hollow feel to it.

Livestrong, on the other hand, could be hurt badly as it was established by Armstrong, was continually mentioned and plugged by him during his reign on top of the Tour.

For many people, therefore, Livestrong and Armstrong are one and the same. One cannot help but feel then there are people who will identify, with no basis in fact, the charity as having some knowledge of what Armstrong was doing.

Others may look at the charity as merely a cynical exercise to allow Armstrong to take the moral high ground while stooping to some very low levels indeed.

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Cycling cannot forget how it profited out of the Livestrong exercise either. Who could forget the images of riders from different teams coming together to wear the Livestrong wristbands to support cancer survivors?

At a time when the drug scandals were beginning to take shape in the sport, some good PR would have been welcome. Furthermore, when Armstrong himself was leading a bunch of cyclists on a ride for charity, there was no doubting that cycling would get a pat on the back by association, particularly when some of Lance’s teammates from the Tour helped out.

The sad thing about all this, therefore, is that Livestrong will probably take a sizeable hit because of something it knew next to nothing about.

And yet the sport which allowed Armstrong to flout the rules so arrogantly will wash its hands of the charity despite feeding off Livestrong’s good publicity in the better times.

It’s the sort of thing a comedian could write a routine about.

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