When my father was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, one of the first things I did was put a yellow rubber Livestrong bracelet on my right wrist.

I was, at the time, a newly-minted road cycling enthusiast and so I’d read quite a bit about the racing exploits of Lance Armstrong, the man at the centre of the Livestrong campaign. The Armstrong bio — seven Tour de France wins after recovering from a near-fatal fight with cancer — was not only impressive, it was inspiring. Watching him race made me want to ride my bike more.

But that isn’t why I starting wearing a Livestrong band. As my father struggled with his diagnosis and then with his treatment for lung cancer, which included surgery, chemo and radiation, I felt largely unable to help. Part of it was geography — he lives in Montreal — but mostly it was the nature of the inherently individualistic battle that literally millions of people wage against the disease.

The Livestrong band made me feel closer to my Dad somehow. It served as a constant reminder to keep him in my thoughts, to call him often, to stay relentlessly, almost maniacally, positive. It represented hope: If Lance could beat cancer and win the freaking Tour de France, then certainly my dad had a chance to at least survive (and maybe, just maybe play a little golf some day).

But Armstrong — and by extension Livestrong — has recently suffered a near-apocalyptic fall from grace. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s 1,000-page report on the racer’s use of performance enhancing drugs throughout his career has led big name companies such as Nike and Trek bicycles to drop him as a corporate pitchman. He has been forced to resign as the chair of Livestrong and his “celebrity marketability,” according to one news report, has plummeted to the point where it’s at about the same level as that of Khloe Kardashian. And she’s famous because her sister made a sex tape.

Among the spandex-clad weekend warriors like me, Armstrong has long been a polarizing figure and the subject of endless debate.

Purists and cynics were inclined to label him as simply a cheat.

Apologists generally used three lines of defence:

a) He never got caught doping.

b) Most top riders in pro cycling use drugs, so why shouldn’t Armstrong.

c) Livestrong justifies whatever Armstong did to achieve his fame.

I was particularly fond of the last two points, but even I will admit that it’s getting tougher to make those claims.

While it’s true that cycling has been notoriously dirty for a long time, the anti-doping agency’s report makes it clear Armstrong was as much ringleader and pusher as he was a user of performance-enhancing drugs.

What has emerged — and a former teammate Tyler Hamilton lays it out in his excellent book, The Secret Race — is that Lance Armstrong is a hyper-competitive jerk and a bully. His fall seems fuelled as much by the emergence of who he is as for what he actually did.

The man and his organization are both almost laughably compromised — Livestrong gives no money to cancer research and has a for-profit arm that I’m not crazy about.

What it represented to me — things like courage and hope and strength in the face of unthinkable suffering and tough odds — are still important ideas, however, no matter how hokey they are.

And so I’m still wearing my Livestrong bracelet, at least for now. My dad beat cancer and has returned to the links with a vengeance.

So I no longer need the bracelet as a symbol of my support for his struggle.

But I can’t seem to bring myself to take off the yellow rubber band, no matter how tarnished it has become.

Drew Edwards is a Guelph-based journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]

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