Nike ends Lance Armstrong sponsorship
17/10/2012
In June 2012, the US Anti-Doping Agency charged Lance Armstrong with having used illicit performance enhancing drugs during a competitive career in which he won the Tour de France seven times in a row between 1999 and 2005. He completed his final Tour de France in 2010, finishing twenty-third. These results came after he received a diagnosis of advanced testicular cancer at the age of 25 in October 1996; emergency surgery and chemotherapy saved his life.
He founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation in 1997 to support people affected by cancer. The foundation has raised more than $325 million from the sale of yellow bracelets bearing his motto, Livestrong.
In August, the US Anti-Doping Agency that it was imposing a lifetime ban from competition on the athlete and called for the cycling authorities to strip him of all titles. The sport’s governing body, the Union Cycliste International, has asked the agency for a “reasoned decision” giving all its findings before it makes any official comment. The agency has still to issue that “reasoned decision” but said in a statement on October 10 that Lance Armstrong was part of “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.
In its statement on October 17, Nike said: “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. Nike plans to continue support of the Livestrong initiatives created to unite, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.”
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