Lance Armstrong, seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor, is swimming in allegations claiming the athlete cheated the system by using performance-enhancing drugs. Rather than fight to preserve his reputation, Armstrong is taking a different route.
This is not the first time the professional cyclist has been accused of doping. However, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) says it has blood samples from previous years proving the athlete used performance-enhancing drugs and is pushing hard for an investigation.
Where does this leave the legend?
From a public relations perspective, Armstrong had two options including fighting the USADA and losing in a painful finish, or surrendering early and still losing. Armstrong has already picked his poison in this likely lose-lose scenario.
Armstrong has chosen the latter, and stands strong by saying “enough is enough.”
In a statement released last week, Armstrong said:
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now. I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. Over the past three years, I have been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart’s unconstitutional witch hunt. The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today—finished with this nonsense.”
This move likely means Armstrong will be stripped of his seven titles and banned from the sport. This move, also, should help salvage his $100 million foundation, Livestrong, which has helped 2.3 million cancer survivors.
The public has been outraged. The hot topic #Armstrong was even trending on Twitter, with comments ranging from loyalty to backlash. Fans inspired by Armstrong’s achievements maintain his innocence. But even more interesting are comments like this particular tweet which reads, “What a break for those guys who finished second who were also doping.”
How do you feel about Lance Armstrong’s decision?
Image 1 via KSTP
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I will always support what Lance has accomplished in his cycling career and with his cancer foundation. Regardless how this ends, he has changed the sport forever in some of the best ways. I completely understand his need to backdown. Well done Taylor I am excited to see what the media does with this.
I think his response was perfect. And I agree with Britt.
One still can’t help but wonder if 1) He really did dope and is covering it up, or 2) who in power in the government he crossed that is obviously bent on making his life miserable – or on nullifying everything he has worked so hard to achieve.
It seems really odd to me that an agency of the U.S. would be after him this way, particularly when he passed the same drug tests as his competitors through the years. I can see a motive for Armstrong doping (if he did). But what would be the motive for an agency of his own country to work so hard and long to strip Armstrong of his victories, his reputation, and the honor he brought to his country? Definitely something to think about.
I’m thinkin’ the U.S. gov should just cut their losses and move forward.
You can’t change the past, if they think their testing was “flawed” in some way, they need to work on fixing it, not going after athletes in the past.
Now that the USADA has proven that Armstrong is guilty of doping, it’s easy to agree with his decision to throw up his hands and say “enough is enough”. Initially I would have argued that he should have cut his losses years ago and just admitted the truth, which would likely have come out eventually anyway. But Armstrong is guilty of something more powerful than doping. He’s guilty of believing that he’s bigger than the sport, that he’s invincible, that he’s untouchable. And why wouldn’t he believe that? He got away with it for at least 13 of the 19 years of his professional career, with little more than some finger pointing and raised eyebrows.
He is just one in a long line of famous, powerful, wealthy sports figures who believe their own hype and think they can do anything with no consequences: Tiger Woods, Pete Rose, Mike Tyson, OJ Simpson . . . the list goes on. Other than the subjects of their scandals, the big differences I see between these athletes and Lance Armstrong are two things: he beat cancer, and he formed a hugely successful organization to help others beat it, too — two things that couldn’t be enhanced by doping. It’s why I now believe that continued denial was the better choice. Admission would have meant giving up before Livestrong became such a huge player is cancer research. Now that the truth has come to light, Armstrong can point to the amazing work his organization has done. Perhaps one day that will be enough to at least lessen the public’s current hatred for him.