Lance Armstrong

Kyle A. Richardson is the editorial director of Promo Marketing. He joined the company in 2006 brings more than a decade of publishing, marketing and media experience to the magazine. If you see him, buy him a drink.

Elise Hacking Carr is senior production editor for Print & Promo Marketing magazine, and managing editor for PRINTING United Journal.

In the wake of Lance Armstrong’s admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win his record seven Tour de France titles, Nike took another step back from Armstrong and announced that it would stop manufacturing Livestrong-brand shoes and apparel at the end of this year.

Nike, Livestrong’s main corporate backer, will continue to fulfill its financial obligations to Livestrong, the cancer foundation started by Armstrong, through 2014, but will not renew the partnership, Livestrong said.

On Oct. 2, 1996, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer. A year later he would begin the Lance Armstrong Foundation and embark on a journey that would lead him to an unprecedented run of Tour De France victories and establish himself as one of the greatest and most inspiring athletes of all time. And while the narrative of Armstrong's athletic successes has changed ever so slightly, he has decided to continue the foundation along with Nike to promote cancer research in an effort to find a cure for the disease.

If you haven't worn one yourself, it's highly likely you've at least seen a yellow Livestrong wristband. The ubiquitous bracelets are as much a fashion statement as they are a call for solidarity. But seven years ago, the Lance Armstrong Foundation thought the fund-raising wristband, a collaborative effort by Nike and Wieden+Kennedy, would be an absolute dud.

"First and foremost, we thought it was a terrible idea—a horrible idea," said Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong, at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored conference in San Francisco last week. 

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