How the Livestrong wristband survived Lance Armstrong
By Jake Tapper, CNN
(CNN) — Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, said Shakespeare’s Henry IV, but the king of cycling, Lance Armstrong, wasn’t content with his athletic garland, he had the rest of us wearing something too: those yellow silicone gel wristbands that read LIVESTRONG.
Introduced in 2004 as part of his cancer foundation, those wristbands were on the wrists of tens of millions of us, including celebrities, politicians, and even Armstrong’s rivals at the 2004 Tour de France.
They were a symbol of the investment we all had in the success of the well-spoken, handsome, inspiring athlete, who went from battling advanced testicular cancer at 25 to dominating his sport only a few years later.
What a story! Marketed by NIKE and bought by so many of us, Lance Armstrong as we understood him was a myth we all wanted to believe was true. Those few not blinded by the desire to believe Armstrong’s story, who knew he was doping, suffered greatly. Given how prevalent doping was in cycling at the time, it may be that the truest scandal in the whole saga was his lying and bullying.
For the newest episode of United States of Scandal, we spoke with his one-time and whistleblower teammate Floyd Landis, reporter David Walsh, and team carer-turned- whistleblower Emma O’Reilly, all of whom tried to bring to light evidence of his doping. They saw firsthand how the confidence and intensity that Armstrong used in his pursuit of perfection on his bike could be viciously turned on those who dared to question him. The specifics of his brutality toward these whistle-blowers, as well as close friends like Betsy Andreu, the wife of former teammate Frankie Andreu, are a stunning parallel to the behavior Armstrong showed in his sport.
He had a shield – the investment of corporate sponsors such as NIKE, which said that Armstrong misled the company for more than a decade. In fact, several interviewees told us that, had Armstrong not attempted a comeback after his retirement, at a time when he was no longer the unquestioned champion, they think the system protecting Armstrong from public scrutiny might never have cracked. Upon the revelation, he was stripped of his seven consecutive Tour de France titles, along with major endorsements and one Olympic medal. He was banned from the sport of cycling for life. Everyone was parting ways from the former legend.
The Livestrong organization remained the one uncontested part of Armstrong’s story. However, in the words of the foundation’s CEO Suzanne Stone, “In 2012, Livestrong and Armstrong got a divorce. He got the bike, and we kept the house.” The essence of the movement continues. They are focused on helping people live with cancer — as Lance Armstrong so valiantly embodied in the early years of his career.
Ultimately, we discovered that the story of Lance Armstrong is more than a simple story about an athlete cheating; it asks compelling questions about the nature of champions, and the responsibility of the systems that support them. We hope you’ll tune in Sunday.
The-CNN-Wire
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