Lance Armstrong's foundation sees $78K in donations, 25 times greater than normal day - ESPN
Stop Lance. Nope. He's incorruptible. He's become a symbol for something greater than a cyclist. USADA has failed.
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If the donations to the Lance Armstrong Foundation are going to tail off, it certainly didn't happen on Day 1 after Armstrong decided to stop fighting charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his cycling career.
The foundation's CEO Doug Ulman told ESPN on Friday night that unsolicited donations were up almost 25 times as compared to Thursday.
Every sponsor of Armstrong or the Foundation chose to publicly stand by him and the organization on Friday. Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Oakley, Johnson Health Tech, Sporting KC, FRS, Honey Stinger and American Century Investments all issued statements of support.
Over the past 15 years, the Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised more than $470 million, more than any athlete charity in history.
He didn't lose a single sponsor.
And he has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his charity.
He seems more like Bill Gates every day. Act one seemed great at the time but it's really in act two where he's going to make a huge difference to the world.
Yeah some folks were trying to compare this to paterno, tiger, kobe...but there's no comparison.
The gates comparison is an interesting one, and probably the most accurate. Gates was a hero (and probably still is) to most Americans throughout the 90s. Microsoft was tarnished at the turn of the century, and as a result of being CEO, Gates was as well.
The Gates Foundation has turned him into a legend; he's no longer just one of the most successful businessmen of our era, he's transcended that.
Lance has transcended cycling and sports and this proves it.
In both cases they knew how to take what they had -- a spotlight and the ability to raise enormous amounts of money -- and turn those into movements to make the world better.
Bill Clinton and Michael Milken doing something similar. Doing something that renders whatever past controversy tiny in comparison.
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