Now that Lance Armstrong has admitted to Oprah that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs over the span of his career, Nike has a few words on the matter, releasing the following statement:
Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner. We love sport and believe in the integrity of competition.
We terminated our contract with Lance Armstrong in October 2012. We remain saddened after being misled for more than a decade.
Nike plans to continue support of the Livestrong initiatives created to unite, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.
They weren’t misled, this was common knowledge for everybody that knows even the littlest things about cycling(43 out of the top 50 cyclists got caught during the 90s/00s, Lance was 1 of the 7 that didn’t).
So it’s safe to say, all cyclists use PED’s, and all this feigned ignorance is getting a little annoying.
Cycling is a dirty sport, has been since the early 1930′s, and everybody involved with cycling knows that, and has known that since forever.
You would actually die cycling, with the amount of miles/kilometers cyclists do yearly, your body simply couldn’t take it.
So it’s simple, either accept cycling as a ‘chem-experiment’ or cancel the sports, but enough with the hypocrisy already.
There’s a bit of irony here, as in initially, Nike didn’t even want to be involved with LIVESTRONG. Now they are embracing it, as if it is some noble cause on their behalf. LIVESTRONG has been nothing but a marketing cash cow for Nike, and if it weren’t, they’d drop it like a hot potato.