On November 5 in Edenbridge, U.K., a 30-foot-tall model of Lance Armstrong was burned to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failed plot to blow up the Parliament. The giant Armstrong likeness held a Tour de France cup in one hand and a sign in the other, which read, “For sale, racing bike, no longer required.” Prior to this bonfire, a host of corporations paid Armstrong millions of dollars for an image, not an effigy.
Those sponsors have now dropped Armstrong since a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigation which ultimately led to a lifetime ban concluded that the cyclist took performance-enhancing drugs during his run of seven consecutive first-place finishes in the Tour de France.
