Must Reads: Armstrong exploring reparations, Burke talks Texan
Lance Armstrong is exploring his options to avoid legal battles over sponsorship and other earnings; Trek's John Burke talks about the fall of his longtime poster boy
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Armstrong considers raparations — Roopstigo.com
Lance Armstrong’s legal team is reportedly exploring settlement options with sponsors and others following the evacuation of his seven Tour de France titles and all results between August 1998 and 2010. Selena Roberts reports that Armstrong attorney Tim Herman last week offered SCA Promotions, the insurance company that paid the Texan three bonuses for his Tour wins, including the 2004 bonus that Armstrong won in arbitration, $1 million to settle any pending legal action. The firm has indicated that it plans to pursue more than $10 million in damages from Armstrong in the wake of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s case against him.
Trek’s John Burke talks Armstrong — Journal Sentinel
Trek Bicycle Corporation president John Burke was one of Lance Armstrong’s longest backers, seeing the American through his seven-win streak at the Tour de France between 1999 and 2005. The mountain of evidence USADA presented last month detailing Armstrong’s doping ring at the Trek-backed U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams was too much for Burke, however, and Trek pulled its sponsorship on the same day that Nike, RadioShack, Giro and others announced that they were distancing the Texan.
“I want to make the right decision. Just make the right call. People disagree with it or whatever, we can deal with it. We move on. And for Lance, that was the right call for Trek to make,” said Burke. “If it was a negative in the marketplace or a positive in the marketplace, it really didn’t matter to me. We are going to be in business for 100 years.”
Burke tells The Journal Sentinel’s Don Walker that the fortunes of his company and others rose with Armstrong and that he prefers to think of the good Armstrong did in attracting new riders to the sport.
“I think that what Lance did was he got a lot of people in America riding bikes,” Burke said. “That’s his legacy. Trek’s business went up because of that. And do did everybody else’s.”