Branding “Survival”

There’s not much to say about Lance Armstrong that hasn’t already been said – When he was great, he exerted a dominance over the peloton that may never be equaled, and he re-defined how Grand Tours are raced – for better or worse.

Following the release of the 200+ page “reasoned decision” document compiled by Travis Tygart and the US Anti Doping Agency, it appears as though Lance’s most significant life achievement to this day remains conquering cancer.

There are people out there - mainly devout Armstrong fans and libertarians - who accuse Tygart of wasting tax dollars on a witch-hunt, dragging up ghosts of cycling’s past instead of concentrating on keeping today’s athlete clean and honest.

To the Libertarians, well, I say the money’s been spent by an agency adhering to its government-issued mandate – until your beliefs become the majority in this country, there’s not much anyone can do to change that.

As for the devout Lance fans who buy into his PR machine/legal team, there’s a whole lot to say.

Many claim the investigation has done nothing positive for cycling today, and simply drags up the past for no reason. In fact, I believe the complete opposite has occurred. While Armstrong and his devotees may not like that he’s become the poster boy for cycling’s darkest era, the fact remains that he’s the one who put himself there.

Tygart’s report didn’t just expose Armstrong and the power he held over his US Postal Service team. It managed to crack a long-present code of silence that existed between riders and everyone who lived and worked in pro cycling – a code that consistently put riders’ lives at risk, held their careers hostage, and shattered the dreams of those who adhered to their moral compass by racing clean in spite of the underground system’s stronghold on pro cycling.

Now, I’m not saying Armstrong and the US Postal team were unique – they weren’t. The peloton that Lance and the boys cheated their way to the front of was rife with high profile winners who leveraged the code of silence in their quest for greatness. What I’m saying is that he is the one significant rider who has built an international brand based on his success during that era, and is the last of the big champions of the day who continues to deny his dark deeds.

When confronted with doping allegations, he typically gets angry – annoyed by the insinuation that he didn’t work for the victories. Nobody’s denying that he worked hard – and not just at engineering and maintaining one of finest cheating conspiracies to ever have taken place in professional sports.

The fact of the matter is, he trained his ass off – as did his teammates – to cross those finish lines first. He was focused, regimented, obsessed – and nobody can ever say that he didn’t train harder, or want it more than anyone else in that peloton – but it was all heightened by the use of illegal substances and practices.

If you, I, or even someone physiologically predisposed to cycling greatness put ourselves through the same doping regimen that Tygart’s report spells out, we still couldn’t be as fast as Lance was. To achieve the things he did, it takes more than just The Juice and good genes. You need the will to give everything you have to win – hard work, dedication, your marriage, your soul – and I just don’t have that. I love riding, and I love bikes, and I even love winning, but I’m not willing to work that hard or sacrifice that much to make it happen. – and Lance was.

But the fact remains – he cheated. He lied. He used his power in the peloton not just to win races, but to build his global brand – A brand that, when threatened with things like doping allegations and facts, talks about the great work that Lance and his Livestrong Foundation do.

Over the past couple of years, there have been many things written calling into question Livestrong and how the donations they receive are allocated. Some claim that it’s focus on the nebulously-defined “cancer awareness” campaigns do more to promote the Brand of Lance than actually working to eradicate cancer.

To an ever-growing collective critical eye, the Brand of Lance’s cancer survival, and Livestrong provide the disgraced former champion with a sort of moral umbrella when the storm of doping charges get too close - Like we’re all supposed to feel guilty calling his integrity into question because he survived cancer.

I’ll concede the value of the hope Lance has brought to those with little reason to have any - But that doesn’t excuse the fact that his entire brand – the whole “I survived cancer and won the world’s hardest sporting event 7 times!!!” is built on a lie, and is perpetuated by leveraging our collective fear of getting sick and dying.

That’s the sad part of all of this - when it comes down to it, he’s a guy who beat life’s most formidable opponent and, when given a second chance at living, he chose to cheat his way through loopholes in cycling’s rulebook simply to grow his brand and become the deity he's always felt entitled to be.