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Photo from The Guardian.The other shoe has essentially dropped. Armstrong has stepped down as the chairman of the Livestrong Foundation while sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch, Trek bicycles and Nike have dropped him like a sack of potatoes.  Nike stated "Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him. Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner."  So here the debates begin: cheater or philanthropist? Philanthropic cheater? I suppose it's not like the two are mutually exclusive.  The argument I find interesting is what has been referred to as the "cancer shield".  It is the reflex answer for the Liar Liar Bike Shorts on Fire label - you cannot diminish the $500 million he has raised for cancer research.  The following tweets are examples of some people's unwavering allegiance:

@StuartScott Whn Dr says "U have Cancer"--Scary!! I KNOW!! @lancearmstrong has helped 2.5 million scared folk feel better.  I don't care about a bike race
@KarenCivil I can admit cheating is wrong..but the Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised nearly $500 million for cancer research
I will not deny that Armstrong has provided an incalculable amount of intangibles for many people and where you draw your inspiration from is up to you.  However, I think it is important to put Lance Amstrong and the politics that surround him into context.

Let's start with the cancer shield.  Livestrong is a well-oiled fundraising machine but what are those funds used for?  According to Doug Ulman the CEO of Livestrong, the foundation is

"about the people...Most organizations are about the disease. They're about trying to solve a disease, and we are about trying to improve the lives of people that are battling the disease...What can we do today to improve their lives?  As opposed to saying we'll fund research that in 15 years might help somebody live a little longer."

So not exactly fighting cancer through research, which is how most people understand Livestrong, but more on the palliative care side of things.  Still a noble cause but it is a very different mandate considering that most people donate their money in order to find a cure but Livestrong has essentially conceded that cancer happens so we might as well help you through the process.  Personally, I believe this to be a more realistic stance but I digress. Did I mention that Ulman's annual salary is $320,000?

Bill Gifford's article from Outside magazine is an extremely in depth and nuanced piece that shines a light on Armstrong and his foundation.  In it we learn that:

• Livestrong stopped funding cancer research in 2005 and no longer accepts research proposals because it realized that the grants it was awarding were too small to make a difference compared to the $2 billion handed out annually by the American Cancer Society.  Thus, without Livestrong research money testicular cancer has lost its most valuable source of private funding.
• There are two Livestrong websites: livestrong.org is the non-profit foundation website, and livestrong.com is a for-profit site.  So if you visited the .com site and purchased a Livestrong yellow dog leash, for example, you would not have donated to Livestrong the charity.  You would have probably donated to Ulman's paycheque and other parts of Livestrong the for-profit entity.
• In order to sell "hope" Livestrong hired Mark McKinnon, "renowned GOP political consultant and Livestrong board member... and media strategist for President George W. Bush" and Katherine McLane, also from the Bush Administration in charge of defending the No Child Left Behind Law.  (I'm sorry but if you're not up to anything shady then why would you ever hire staffers from the Bush administration?)
• During 2009 and 2010, $60 million of the $84 million raised by Livestrong went to pay for marketing and PR
• During Armstrong's comeback when he said that he would be racing for free "he actually pocketed appearance fees in the high six figures from organizers...and admitted to The New York Times that he was treating it as personal income."  Also, his standard speaking fee is $200,000.  

As accounting professor Mark Zimbelman is quoted in Gifford's article, "The issue with Lance Armstrong isn't whether he has done good for cancer victims but rather, whether he first cheated to beat his opponents, then used his fraudulent titles to help promote an organization that appears to do good but also enriches a fraudster." We need to acknowledge the fact that the reason Livestrong has raised as much money as it has is because of Armstrong's cycling success - fraudulent success.  Is it okay that he cheated, got cancer and then did something good with the money?  Does anyone wonder if the doping is what gave him cancer?  I do. And seeing as how his corporate sponsors make up 1/3 of Livestrong's donations, I ask is  his cheating irrelevant to his philanthropy when a philanthropist is willing to jeopardize some of his largest sources of funding?  Also, I question how come someone who survived cancer chooses to direct so much of his money, time and effort to enhancing the lives of those living with cancer (like I said, certainly noble and valuable) and so little of it to preventing cancer.  We are well aware that cancer exists now let's figure out how to NOT get it! I don't know about you but I would prefer to skip the whole process altogether instead of having to survive through it.
Okay so cancer shield aside, let's discuss Armstrong's fall from grace.  Similar to Tiger Wood's tumult, although for vastly different reasons, once again a national hero becomes tabloid fodder.  Armstrong's scandal is being described as "the most sophisticated, professionalized, and successful doping program."  I suppose anything worth doing is worth doing well, but I don't really care that he cheated.  I think it's wrong to cheat but I am not surprised when professional athletes are exposed for using any means possible when the institution of sport almost endorses it.
I have explained my arguments "for" doping, if we want to call it that, in a previous post but what I would like to pose here is the idea that doping or cheating is almost inevitable as long as sport continues to put performance above all else.  More often than not expecting athletes to continually set records, push the boundaries of human performance, and win at all costs fosters an unhealthy environment.  Hence, I don't think we should act so righteous when an athlete does everything to ensure that he is the legend that corporations, the media, and the fans have made him out to be.  We created the pedestal and then we act betrayed when the person atop that pedestal falls off.  Did they fall off or did we push them off? Sure, not every athlete falls 'victim' to cheating, which makes it seem like an individual choice when one athlete cheats and another does not; however, we do not live in a vacuum.  Our individual choices are almost always affected by systems and institutions much larger than us.  He was offered millions of dollars because he won and they wanted him to continue winning.  It appears that he has always been a cheater so if you were rewarded for cheating the first time why wouldn't you continue cheating?  Billie Jean King has been quoted as saying "Champions keep playing until they get it right," Armstrong just happened to get it right early on.
Sport is an institution that loves the hero, the tragic personal story, the winner, the underdog, and the record setter.  Lance Armstrong is/was all of these things.  Evidently, he also fills the role of villain.  A hero does not exist without a villain and as classic Lance, he does it all.  I don't want to make excuses for Armstrong, he is absolutely accountable for his actions but I think at a larger level everyone who has ever cheered for an athlete to break a record or play through an injury is in some way responsible for a system that privileges performance above all else.  The 1000 page USADA document arguably indicates that Armstrong was always the villain.  We made him the hero.

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