As a kid, life was simple. You had your heroes and villains.
Good and evil. White and black. Its difficult to point out when exactly things
changed but shades of grey slowly started making their way into life's colour
palette. Slowly you no longer expect your friends to do the right things every
time and you grudgingly have to admit that the guy who keeps shooting you down
in office nailed the customer presentation in a way that you could never have
done. And you learn to gradually accept that people and things aren't always
the way you want them to be. And you live with it.
Lance Armstrong's shocking admission about doping on Oprah
(a move that has undoubtedly reinvigorated her career) last week was a slap in
the face to a lot of people. Lance Armstrong - Cancer survivor. Best-selling
author. Winner of a record seven consecutive Tour de France races. Founder of Livestrong.
Shining beacon of hope for cancer patients. And now, user and distributor of
performance enhancing drugs.
Yes the very same Lance Armstrong who beat testicular cancer
and established probably the most famous foundation for cancer research and
support in 1997. One year later, he won the first of his seven consecutive Tour
de France titles. And after years of facing doping allegations, in August
2012, Lance Armstrong was finally banned from
all competition by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and was stripped of all titles that he had won since August
1998. The man whose struggle against cancer and ensuing triumph in the cycling world inspired countless other patients, had single handedly destroyed an empire of
goodwill and awareness in the battle against cancer. And the world forever lost
one of its favourite good guys.
Or did it? I decided to do a bit of research into what Lance
Armstrong has done over the years to see if I could weigh it against the house
of mirrors that he built and shattered. In a decade and a half, Livestrong has
raised $ 470 million with over 81% going directly to support their programs and
services for survivors. Surprisingly (at least for me) the Livestrong
Foundation does not directly support cancer research but its mission is 'to
inspire and empower' cancer survivors and their families.
Not having any idea what that actually meant, I decided to do
more investigating and stumbled upon this link ( http://www.livestrong.org/pdfs/4-0/Annualreport_Web-version2011 ). Long story
short, in addition to the great work that they do across the world and with
their partners, they also provide multilingual assistance for:
• Emotional Support
• Fertility Risks and preservation options
• Insurance, Employment and Financial concerns
• Treatment concerns
I went through a few forums and found real world examples of
how the Livestrong Foundation is changing lives and helping raise funds for
some fantastic programs. Now how many celebrities do you know who have actually
used their status for good? I’m not saying that there is not a single movie
star or cricketer or politician who doesn’t support a charity (publicly or
anonymously) but how many of them have actually done anything remotely similar
to what Lance Armstrong has done? Can they do it? Have they done it?
So take a minute and try to forget about Lance Armstrong,
the man who cheated his way to the top of the cycling world. Think of Lance
Armstrong as an ordinary man who used his fame to spread awareness about cancer
and help unite the world in its fight against it. Think of Lance Armstrong as
an ordinary man who has made an extraordinary difference.
Of course, I wish that this is all a bad dream
and that I will wake up soon. But that isn't going to happen. What will happen
is that we will eventually live with the fact that Lance was nothing more than
a common cheat. But it still doesn't make his accomplishments outside of the
cycling world any less important. Lance Armstrong still is a hero. Lance
Armstrong is a hero in a shade of grey in this multichromatic world of ours.
