Image via Deadspin
Dear Lance,
Yesterday was a very bad day for you. Sure, you were dogged by allegations and indictments for years, but it gets real when you’re abandoned by all your sponsors.
Nike led the charge and was followed by Trek, Giro, FRS, Honey Stinger, 24 Hour Fitness and Radio Shack. Ouch.
Anheuser-Busch was also among the sponsors who chose not to renew its contract with you. Though as Deadspin reported, you’re still going to take one last awkward ride for Michelob Ultra, as advertised in Runner’s World and Sports Illustrated. Have fun with that.
I don’t mean to be glib, but I wonder if all this could have been avoided if you just drank a craft beer once in awhile. Let me explain.
Looking back, we all got caught up in the fairy tale of your seven Tour de France victories. It was a heady mix of inspiration, determination and patriotism. Winning feels good. Really good.
But the problem is when it becomes a zero sum game. By all accounts, you were beyond obsessed with winning and forced this win-at-all-costs attitude on others around you. You were a jerk, to put it lightly.
I encourage you to watch the documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.” It interviews everyone from kids to amateur weightlifters to pro athletes who are motivated to take performance enhancing drugs because they believe that not winning equals failure. We’re all complicit in this culture.
We all need to relax and look at the big picture. Is winning worth cheating, alienating everyone around you and jeopardizing your health? Maybe you have a different answer today than you did as you were winning accolade after accolade.
There is an alternative. The beer runner philosophy is all about balancing the enjoyment of craft beer with a healthy active lifestyle. This makes it OK to have something beyond an ultra light beer. You get the best of both worlds.
You could even have a performance enhancing craft beer. Sorry, too soon?
Good luck. You’re going to need it.
Sincerely,
The Beer Runner
Posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2012
I must confess that the more I understand and think about what he did to earn his 7 Tour de France titles, I have two conflicting emotions: 1) he had to beat others who doped up as well. 2) he was either damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He chose to do it for not just 7 years but for most of his career. He honed his cheating art just like race car drivers have the best engines they can cram into a legal displacement. So he may look at things that way and claim a moral position from it. But he still sold out his own credibility to do it. There had to be a better way. Let’s put it this way: would you trust Lance Armstrong with your child’s athletic training? Just my thoughts.
Awesome!
Dude gets paid by M Ultra. But I’ve heard he likes Fireman’s #4, which just won a silver medal at gabf:
http://realalebrewing.com/news/64-rabc-wins-metals-at-2012-gabf
I’m under the impression the Mich Ultra was just for the $$$. He mentioned in his first book (and I believe elsewhere later on) loving to drink Shiner Bock. I doubt that’s a medal winning beer, but it’s not hardly the mega-brewery swill from AB.
WOW – cheap and tasteless… hmm just like Anheuser-Busch beer..
Just read your letter after finishing my own open letter to lance. Great job! Love the beer angle. Here is the link to my letter:
http://runlonger.blogspot.com/2012/10/an-open-letter-to-lance-armstrong.html
Great article, but i cant help feeling you linked the wrong brewdog beer. Surely http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/never-mind-the-anabolics would be more suitable?