In a follow-up piece to our blog of a week ago, where we covered the USADA/WADA/ICU firestorm surrounding cyclist Lance Armstrong, we now look back at one mere week later, in which his situation became even worse, yet again. But it's no real surprise, and is more or less precisely what I predicted was coming at the end of last Friday's piece.
In a single 24 hour period the superstar athlete lost both his biggest champion and sponsor, Nike, and also "stepped down" from chairmanship of his very own Livestrong charity. "A changin' day, in yo' life", it sure was. Nike had been stalwart supporters of Armstrong through thick and thin, and in fact had produced ads in which the athlete even mocked those who accused him of doping, which seems highly ironic today.
But in a curt statement they announced their termination of any business relationship with Armstrong, due to "seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade." Misled, of course, being corporate speak for "lied".
That's truly saying something for a company that ran ads with voice-overs from the athlete with mocking content such as "people say I'm a doper" or "what am I on? I'm (only) on my bike!" which today appear ridiculous. Nike got the wool pulled over their eyes, big time. But it's no shame, because so did (almost) everyone else.
But once the rats start to leave the sinking ship, watch out, it's only a matter of time. Within hours of each other, beer giant Anheuser-Busch, Radio Shack and Trek bikes all departed this sinking ship, and in total we are talking about a collective loss of around $15 million from sponsorship deals alone.
Oakley sunglasses apparently remain on board, for now, but they are awaiting a decision from the ICU, which effectively means they want another entity to make the decision for them, and in that case, well, it is essentially 100% certain that Oakley will walk too. At this stage (no pun intended!), the next move by the ICU is hardly going to be vague: their hands are tied.
Last night, Armstrong spoke publicly for the first time in recent weeks, standing in front of Livestrong employees (most are cancer survivors) at their 15th anniversary fundraising gala. It was hardly the joyous affair that was initially planned, and in fact, Armstrong now sort of stands in the way of his own charity and has become both a negative and a distraction.
Whether you like this fact or not, if he is officially separated from his seven Tour "victories", then the person who this charity uses (or has used) to be their superstar fundraising champion will have been declared a serial liar and cheat, and an extremely arrogant one to boot.
"It's been a difficult two weeks. I've been better, but I've also been worse." said Armstrong last night at the Austin convention center hosting the gala.
Somehow, it's still as much about him, as it is about anything else. He should either come out and address the charges, or slip off into the background. His speech was mainly notable for one aspect: no hint of any apology or regret, not even to the charity whose future is now in question solely because of his lies.
Funnily enough, today, I think that the people who feel most cheated are actually his general public. Everybody in cycling and huge companies well connected to top level information knew that today was coming, as the charges mounted. But if you use social media, it's so easy to lose count of the millions of people who blindly refused to believe any of it, and boldly claimed that the USADA is corrupt, Lance is incredible, and leave him alone you guys, this is a witch hunt! And so on.
It's funny how the public blindly believes things about celebrities that most would snicker at if it came from one of their friends. Even in the face of never-ending accusations and witness statements, so many refused to believe. Or perhaps just didn't want to believe, because of the guy's "legacy" and for how long they supported him.
If you refer to the Nike quote, he's been lying for over a decade. People don't accept that from others in their everyday lives, but yet they stand up and offer blind support for a guy like Armstrong? It's the power of celebrity, in this case combined with being a superstar athlete who appeared to be superhuman. People need heroes, and this guy sure looked like one. His story was irresistible.
But today, all of those millions are thinking a little differently, it seems. Some of the very vocal tweeters seem to have gone silent on the subject, perhaps feeling a little embarrassed or foolish for their aggressive support of a (now fallen) hero. As recent weeks passed, it became more and more obvious that he not only "misled" giant corporate sponsors, but he actually did so to every one of his staunch supporters.
Now it's not so much the fact that he lied to corporate giants that is most poignant, but rather the arrogance with which he dismissed the allegations (to the cheers of his grand public) in the media, all because of the cycling omerta which he was convinced would keep his backside covered. But the sad fact for all those blind supporters is that every time he stared right into the TV camera and convincingly refuted any/all such allegations, he was lying outright to each and every one of them.
So what's next for Livestrong? Well, they did raise another $2.5M last night at the gala, but the future is looking far from rosy today. How far can you go with a disgraced athlete at the helm of what is a charitable organization? He's still around for now, even if exited as chairman, but what do you think is going to happen when the ICU step in and strip him of all of his titles and ratify the lifetime ban from competitive sport?
Once that happens he will be formally labeled as a doper, cheat and liar, and how can any legitimate charity continue to use him as their poster boy? Especially if entities such as the Sunday Times or the SCA serve new lawsuits to reclaim back monies that would then have been fraudulently taken from them? The whole mess will just go on and on.
I am sure that there must be quiet moments these days when Armstrong sits back in his sofa and wonders how it all came to this? He is a victim of his own outlandish success and by becoming such a superstar he ultimately became the target of many who probably were/are jealous of how much he got from the sport, while they were sidelined. The very fact that they knew it was one massive lie must have eaten at their insides, until the insides started spilling out onto newspapers and microphones.
There are many lessons in this story, one of which surely is that it is better to be unknown and less wealthy than becoming a rich superstar but getting there illegitimately. The vultures will always circle around what appears to be a source of the most juicy flesh, and in contrast, one should learn that one can never trust a vulture to not turn on you in the end, when it helps their survival. That lesson is one that Armstrong learnt recently, and I am sure that it tears him apart metaphorically as much as a real vulture's beak does when ripping into open flesh. Kevin Mc
PS [Monday, October 22, 2012] - In an update to this blog, as predicted, by its decision to waive the right to take the Armstrong case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the ICU have today officially upheld the USADA ruling that Lance Armstrong be stripped of all Tour de France wins between 1999 and 2005, and handed out a lifetime ban from Olympic sports and cycling. This is the end that was totally predictable since this sorry story began, and it's just a shame for all concerned that it took so long to get there.
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