Cyclist Lance Armstrong is stepping down as chairman of his cancer charity Livestrong, the disgraced cyclist announced Wednesday morning.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong is stepping down as chairman of his cancer charity Livestrong, the disgraced cyclist announced Wednesday morning.
Armstrong’s announcement comes after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a report with evidence that Armstrong and his teammates used performance-enhancing drugs.
One of those to come forward against Armstrong was his former Canadian teammate Michael Barry, who admitted that both he and Armstrong doped.
Also on Wednesday, Nike released a statement saying it had ended its contract with the seven-time Tour de France winner. “Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him,” said the statement. “Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner.”
Nike’s statement comes a day after a group of former pro-cyclists picketed outside Nike headquarters, urging the sportswear giant to stop supporting Armstrong. “I’m asking Nike to acknowledge and honor the work of USADA,” former Armstrong teammate Paul Willerton told Cyclingnews. “These aren’t allegations. There is a serious message here. There are a lot of serious messages here, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask of Nike, the company that gave Lance Armstrong such a powerful pedestal, to acknowledge all of that now.”