It’s about the money
As I wrote a few days ago, we now know that Armstrong had a long history around doping - and that he got some help. Now we’ll look at how this help was built around him to create an empire that thrived upon the myth of Lance - both in terms of the people who profited, and in terms of the importance of Lance.
It’s worth me mentioning here that cycling teams tend to be owned by companies, but take on the name of the sponsor. The company that managed the US Postal team Armstrong enjoyed his success with was named Tailwind Sports. It’s directors were, amongst others:
Lance Armstrong
Bill Stapleton
Thomas Weisel
Now, we could start with any of their directors and be able to follow a long trail. But let’s start with the man second on the list, Bill Stapleton.
Stapleton has been Lance Armstrong’s agent since 1995. He was there before the cancer, and he’s been there ever since. Now, Stapleton has worn a lot of hats, and most of those gain great benefit from the myth of Lance. Stapleton is the chief management officer of Livestrong, and sits on several other companies , including Capitol Sports & Entertainment. But let’s allow CSE to tell the story:
Today, CSE is an integrated marketing and investment company with Lance as a key partner. Bill acts as CMO for the LIVESTRONG brand on behalf of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, serves on the boards of Stubb’s (the club destination for live music in Austin) and FRS, and continues to represent Lance in all aspects of his business.
Note that carefully and distinctly. The Lance Armstrong Foundation is the charity. Livestrong is a brand, and has a very distinctive ‘for profit’ arm. It’s fair to say that all of those are dependant upon Armstrong’s image being that of the clean hero who overcame cancer, and in Stapleton’s role as Armstrong’s agent, it’s his job to promote that. But those aren’t the only hats Stapleton has worn.
Stapleton also served as a vice-president on the United States Olympic Committee, whose mission is:
To support U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in achieving sustained competitive excellence and to preserve the Olympic Ideals, thereby inspiring all Americans.
Now, it goes without saying that Armstrong’s doping goes entirely against the Olympic ideal of clean sport. But did you also know that Stapleton was instrumental in the removal of Marty Mankamyer and the sanctioning of the USOC’s CEO, Lloyd Ward, for ethics violations? Wouldn’t representing an athlete you know to be doping, and whose activities you have managed and covered up also be some fairly heavy ethics violations, particularly when the most flagrant breaches occurred during the time you were supposed to be upholding the Olympic ideal?
But the most interesting thing about this, of course, is that Bill Stapleton was part of the committee responsible for creating USADA, and it’s regulations. Didn’t hear Armstrong complaining about that then? No, neither did I. In fact, Armstrong agreed to be bound by their regulations and arbitration a further four times after USADA’s creation. One can only assume that Armstrong thought they were a great organisation when they were finding other athletes guilty, including his ex-teammates, simply because the man with his best interests at heart had created the organisation. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that Stapleton had called for congressional involvement in the USOC, which led to the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act - a process which Armstrong was to try and claim meant that USADA was a state actor, and therefore couldn’t charge him under the processes Armstrong had agreed to. Now, either Armstrong has the most seriously inept agent in the world, or the most two-faced, inept sports administrator. Somehow I don’t think Armstrong will be lining up to convict him on either count while the dollars keep coming in.
Thomas Weisel is an investment banker by trade, and an extremely successful one. His company, Montgomery Securities, was the sponsor of Armstrong’s first cycling team, Montgomery-Subaru, for whom he rode before making the US National Team. Many of the directors of Montgomery Securities would form Thomas Weisel Partners, an investment firm. Thomas Weisel would also serve on the board of the USA Cycling Development Foundation (USACDF), along with Armstrong and other members of Tailwind Sports. This was apparently a non-profit organisation. In 2000, Weisel organised a buyout of USA Cycling - and this is where it gets interesting - and a new board was appointed. On this board were appointed Steve Johnson from the USACDF, and a man named Jeff Garvey, who was the first chairman of…Livestrong, and currently serves as it’s vice-chairman. I intentionally won’t link to their website (I feel there’s thousands of more worthy cancer charities out there who do something for actual research), but it’s there, in all it’s glory.
So now not only do we have people on the board of Livestrong also on the board of USA Cycling, but the organisations are becoming entrenched with people responsible for punishing doping cyclists prior to USADA, and at the same time, responsible for protecting and building Armstrong as an asset as part of his brand.
But back to Thomas Weisel. Montgomery Securities would go on to fund a company named Amgen, a pharmaceutical company. They, in turn, would sponsor the Tour of California. But what their business came from was the sale of the one drug that would later be at the center of most doping storms - Amgen were the manufacturer of Epogen, one of the most common brands of EPO. Amgen were also a corporate sponsor of….Livestrong.
There’s a hell of a lot of business links which are dependant on Armstrong’s continued image and success, and I’d encourage everyone reading to thank dimspace, whose outstanding spreadsheet hosted at Velorooms formed the basis for much of this. So much of it I omitted from here for the purpose of brevity, but anyone with an interest in cycling should look carefully at it, because MANY of those people are still involved in professional cycling today, not least of whom are two of the most recognisable voices in cycling, Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett. Sherwen especially has business interests with Armstrong - so if you ever hear him commentate, listen for the occasional mention of Armstrong, and the character with which he’s referred.
I guarantee you drugs and doping will be the furthest thing from his mouth. He’ll happily sing the praises of Lance the cancer-fighter, as though that ever remotely had a hand in curing the disease. He may even mention the words 'witch hunt’.
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