Lance Armstrong Gives Speech at Livestrong Gala

Even though Lance Armstrong stepped down as chairman of the Livestrong Foundation this week, he spoke at the charities 15th anniversary gala last night. He began his speech by saying,"It's been a difficult couple of weeks. I've been better and I've also been worse." Armstrong is of course referring to the 200 page report that the USADA recently released that names the (*former) 7 time Tour de France champion and 11 of teammates as performance enhancing drugs users. This is the first time Armstrong has spoken in public since this information has been released.

Armstrong has subsequently been stripped of his Tour titles. Also, Nike and Anheuser-Busch have since dropped their sponsorship's of Armstrong, and we should expect to see other sponsors dropping him in the near future.

In reference to the work that the charity is doing, Armstrong said, "This mission is bigger than me. It's bigger than any individual." While it is excellent that something positive has come from Lance Armstrong's career, it is difficult to accept it as positive now that we know the negative information that has come to light. An inevitable fact is that Armstrong will now go down as one of the biggest frauds of this sporting generation.