The wild goose chase that has been the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's pursuit of Lance Armstrong finally ended Thursday night when the seven-time Tour de France winner dropped his fight against the agency, saying "Enough is enough."
And while the world's most famous cyclist will reportedly be stripped of his Tour de France titles, his social impact since first winning the Tour in 1999 can not be stripped. Among that social impact is Livestrong, a figurehead campaign for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, founded in 1997, two years before his first Tour victory.
Randy Harvey of the Houston Chronicle says that regardless of your feelings about Armstrong's possible guilt in the case, Livestrong lives on and represents something much more than the cyclist.
Long after anyone recalls anything about the seemingly interminable controversy over Armstrong, performance-enhancing drugs and his seven Tour de France championships, Livestrong, with its yellow bracelets, will have contributed millions of dollars to fighting cancer. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency can never take that away from Armstrong or the cancer patients who have been given hope because of his foundation.
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