This time, it's really not about the bike.
The news broke last night that Lance Armstrong will no longer contest the latest allegations of cheating throughout his cycling career, prompting the United States Anti-Doping Agency to strip him of his seven Tour de France titles. If any organization can ever be prepared for a global maelstrom of damning headlines about its founder and most public face, it’s Livestrong, the cancer-fighting foundation Armstrong established in 1997. As CEO Doug Ulman told the assembled staff at Livestrong headquarters in Austin this morning, “Ever since we’ve moved into our office three years ago, we’ve been dealing with this.”
Two years ago, in the midst of an exhaustive federal criminal investigation into Armstrong’s alleged doping and a cover-up, I explored the question, “Can Livestrong Survive Lance”? The foundation continues to capitalize on Armstrong’s celebrity while eluding his notoriety. When an Associated Press story ran at the time speculating about the foundation’s demise, Ulman gathered his staff that day in Austin and urged them not to get distracted from serving 28 million cancer survivors. That night, he followed up with an email: “People are assuming we will fail to fulfill our mission…They don’t know the power of 28 million people.”
This morning, Ulman says, he told the team, “The mission of the organization and what Lance created will win out. That’s what I firmly believe.”
In February, the feds dropped their case against Armstrong. But the USADA promptly launched its own inquiry. If anyone was hoping for a nice tidy ending to the whole did-he-or-didn’t-he matter, today’s news isn’t it. Armstrong isn’t admitting anything. He’s his usual defiant self. He calls the USADA’s case “an unconstitutional witch hunt” and says, “I am finished with this nonsense.” ...
[Source: Fast Company]
No comments:
Post a Comment