Stelios Haji-Ioannou

stelios haji ioannou speaker
  • Serial entrepreneur and founder of Easyjet the low cost airline.
  • Behind a number of philanthropic initiatives supporting entrepreneurship, higher education and environmental sustainability.
  • Expert on building sustainable brands and also taking risks to achieve success.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is  a serial entrepreneur. While he’s known around the world as a business magnate, he’s also hailed as a conference speaker who readily and willingly shares his wisdom to the world.

Stelios is best known for his easyJet start-up in 1995, at the age of just 28. After floating the massively popular budget airline on the London Stock Exchange in 2000; he stepped back to concentrate on extending the easy brand to several businesses – all dedicated to offering consumers more value for less. These include easyHotel, easyCar, easyBus, easyOffice and easyGym – all owned through his private company easyGroup. Stelios and his family continue to own 38% of easyJet where he retains a keen interest in the airline as its largest shareholder.

In 2006, at the age of 39, Stelios received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for services to entrepreneurship. In 2009, Stelios was nominated the Honorary General Consul for the Republic of Cyprus in the Principality of Monaco. Recently Stelios has begun to concentrate on making a difference to society by launching a number of philanthropic initiatives supporting entrepreneurship, higher education and environmental sustainability.

Stelios resides in Monaco. A well known speaker who travels around the world, one of his advocacies is to inspire young entrepreneurs and to spur positive changes in organisations.

Chris Moon

Chris Moon 1
  • Landmine surviving double amputee and top-class conference motivational speaker.
  • Specialist speaker on Health & Safety, Risk & Diversity.
  • Survived near death when clearing landmines for the HALO Trust.
  • Coach to global organisations helping them to overcome management challenges and develop their capabilities by adopting the right mindsets.
  • ‘Going The Extra Mile’ inspiration as he has done.

Chris Moon MBE exists to help people do what they do better, drawing on his unique experiences to illustrate principles people can use in their daily lives.

He’s one of the most fortunate people to be alive you’re likely to meet and should be dead many times over. He’s a former British Officer who left the Army to work for a charity clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance.

He’s one of the few Westerners to survive being taken prisoner in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge (one of the most ruthless terror groups in history). He negotiated his own release and that of two colleagues. Two years later, when working in a remote part of Mozambique, he was blown up walking in a supposedly cleared area losing his lower right arm and leg. To survive he treated himself in the minefield. His doctors said they’d never seen anyone survive with such a small amount of blood.

Less than a year after leaving hospital he successfully completed the London Marathon and became the world’s first amputee ultra-distance runner when he completed the gruelling Marathon Des Sables. Since then he’s completed many of the toughest ultra-distance races in the world, including the Badwater 135 mile Death Valley run in the hottest place on earth.

When it comes to challenging the concept of limitation, adapting to change and overcoming adversity Chris walks the talk. He has a proven track record of delivering high impact presentations, helping to change behaviours and improve performance.

Chris Moon – Motivational Speaker

As a speaker, Chris delivers passion, humour and inspiration. He shares experience on the balance of life and death and the limit of human endurance, which strips away any pretence we have as human beings to allow us to use his principles to do what we do better. These have academic rigour behind them from his Masters in human behaviour and work with psychologists and psychiatrists.

Chris Moon is a truly international speaker who has worked with diverse cultures, businesses and governments around the globe.

Topics include change, motivation, risk and safety, communication, improving sales, diversity and personal and strategic leadership.

Health & Safety, Risk – Content & Client Comments

It is now generally accepted most well-run businesses are aiming for a 100% health and safety record. The clear moral responsibility of keeping staff safe at work, reputation issues and the huge cost of the shutdown and other hidden costs are now widely recognised. Chris Moon examines individual and group behaviours and thinking beyond procedures. His presentations are all bespoke to the individual client and include:

  • Extreme personal experience of high risk environments (past and present) and how and why things can go wrong
  • Academic study of risk and human behaviour and a psychological perspective.
  • The shared experience of the many organisations he’s worked with in the last ten years and the power of personality and presence to effect change.

“Thank you for the time and effort you personally put into our Health & Safety event. We’ve received excellent feedback about your speech and it has left our team with plenty of food for thought.” – Skanska UK

“Thank you very much for your most positive and inspirational contribution towards our Health & Safety Conference. Feedback from the team has commented on the inspiration you have given in encouraging them to reconnect with best practice in Health & Safety.” –Carter Construction

“Thank you for delivering such a brilliant speech. You absolutely hit the spot in terms of both entertaining the room and promoting our safety theme.” – Institute of Gas Engineers 150th Anniversary Dinner

Diversity – Delivery & Client Comments:

Effective diversity policy is much more than ensuring the provisions of Equality are met. By valuing differences there is a huge potential of bottom line benefits from innovation, creativity, higher energy levels and greater levels of communication.

Chris has been involved with many disability organisations and acted as host and facilitator at a number of diversity days, some for disability networks. He creates a bespoke powerful and innovative experience which enables difficult issues to be faced and solutions found. Topics include:

  • Celebrating Difference
  • Communicating the Challenge
  • Engaging – It’s Everyone’s Problem
  • Speaking up when you can’t stand up
  • Creating New Thinking

Chris can advise on all aspects of diversity and help create disability and user groups in addition to Keynote and Workshop experiences.

“Thank you very much for presenting at our International Day of Persons with Disabilities event. Your personal contribution ensured the event was a huge success and that feedback received has been extremely positive.” – Staff Disability Network, City of London

“Chris inspired our audience with an enjoyable and uplifting speech about remaining positive even in very difficult circumstances. His observation on attitudes towards disability was refreshingly honest and from the heart. No jargon, no corporate buzz words and plenty of laughs.” – Hertfordshire County Council

“Huge thanks to Chris for hosting a great ‘Performance Under Pressure’ Wellbeing seminar. Powerful insight into nature of humanity.” – Lloyd’s of London

To Book Chris Moon

Or check the availability of Chris Moon speaking at your company or conference, call or email ProMotivate

Clive Woodward

sir clive woodward
  • High-Performance Coach of England Rugby & British Olympic Team
  • Renowned for changing traditional methods and training teams to prepare for hurdles on the way which ultimately led to great success.
  • Led England to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup and spent six years as Director of Elite Performance for the British Olympic Association.
  • Outright specialist speaker and proven expert on leadership and high performance to organisations worldwide.

Sir Clive Woodward OBE led England to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup and was Director of Elite Performance with the British Olympic Association where Team GB excelled winning 140 Olympic medals in London 2012. He is an expert business coach and addresses conferences all over the world on peak performance and as a leadership speaker.

Woodward played elite level rugby for Harlequins, Loughborough University and Leicester. He won 21 caps for England and won the Grand Slam in 1980 and toured twice with the British & Irish Lions before finishing his career in Australia playing for Manly.

In 1998 Clive Woodward gave future star Jonny Wilkinson his debut, whereas many critics were saying that Wilkinson, aged 18, was too inexperienced. Wilkinson said of Woodward: “His hallmark was his inexhaustible search for that step ahead.” The team developed and subsequently won a Grand Slam in 2003 followed by the 2003 Rugby World Cup, beating the reigning champions Australia in the final.Clive developed the World Cup winning England side in 2003 which had been the culmination of an excellent year where England had won the Grand Slam and had a successful southern-hemisphere tour beating New Zealand and Australia. In 2005 Woodward was the Head Coach of the British Lions during their tour of New Zealand.

Clive and his staff are credited with creating a unique management system within international rugby, bringing professionalism to rugby in England at this level. He has revolutionised the game both on and off the field. Whether in the field of sport or business, the principles associated with building high performance teams are the same. Leadership, teamwork, partnership and attention to detail are the key components of the team building process. Cultures may change from team to team and from company to company but the key ingredients for success remain consistent.

During Clive Woodward’s time with the England Rugby team, and with the backing of the RFU, he established a series of high performance management systems incorporating players, coaches, technical, medical and administrative teams. These systems operated individually and collectively, guided by a series of winning behaviours, which ultimately provide the framework for our activities both on and off the field. It is the establishment, recognition and implementation of these key principles, which have enabled Clive to meet his twin objectives of wanting to build a happy, and more importantly, successful team.

Speaking

Identifying your own winning behaviours will equate to high performance, this is true whether you are managing an international sports team or are responsible for a group of highly skilled businessmen and women. The concept and principles remain the same and Clive’s presentations give you an insight into the tools and methods that he has used since becoming England’s first full time coach in 1997.

The resulting transformation of the national side led to England at last beginning to beat southern hemisphere teams on a regular basis, becoming ranked No 1 in the world, and ultimately winning the greatest prize in rugby, the World Cup.Clive is an exceptional leadership, peak performance, motivational and teamwork speaker with a world class track record of managing teams to the highest levels of sport.

Keynote Topics

1. One Team
“How Do You Want To Be Remembered?”
Focused on “creating an environment so good that everyone wants to be a part of and nobody ever wants to leave,” One Team encapsulates the collaborative leadership model Clive successfully applied to the World Cup winning England rugby team and Team GB at London 2012.

2. The DNA of a Champion
“Talent Alone Is Not Enough”
Based on the notion that “Great Teams Are Made of Great Individuals” Clive has identified four criteria which he believes characterise a champion individual or team in both business and sport. ‘The DNA of a Champion’ details each of these criteria, but also how they can be coached to achieve high performing teams.

3. Winning Ways
“Organise, Evolve, Share”
A successful coach and leader is one who can effectively capture and share their knowledge. Clive believes it is important to formalise this process and is currently working with the IOC and a number of young talented athletes to this end. The goal of this process is to highlight the Winning Moves – those practices crucial to success.

4. Change Thinking
“100 Things 1% Better”
Clive’s reputation as an innovative leader is driven by his determined approach to challenge the traditional school of thought and find new, different ways of operating. In ‘Change Thinking’ he highlights were his inspiration for change originated and illustrates how effective change creates an inspiring and engaging culture off the field as well as impacting performance on the field.

Clive Woodward can deliver virtual keynotes, webinars, and question and answer sessions. Here is an example and recording of one we have organised during the Coronavirus pandemic which worked extremely well:

Watch a Virtual Keynote delivered by Sir Clive Woodward here:

Leadership Special: In Conversation with Sir Clive Woodward

To enquire about and book Sir Clive Woodward please contact PROMOTIVATE Speakers Agency, London office on +44 (0)20 788711829

Ben Ainslie

Ben Ainslie
  • Four times Olympic sailing champion and the world’s most successful Olympic sailor.
  • Skippered the  2013 America’s Cup Winners Team Oracle to a famous turnover of Team New Zealand.

Sir Ben Ainslie CBE is Great Britain’s quadruple gold and silver Olympic medallist and the world’s most successful Olympic sailor. Having won medals in five consecutive Olympic medals, the last four being gold, Ben famously skippered Team Oracle in the 2014 America’s Cup leading one of sports greatest ever comebacks from 0-6 to 8-8 and win 9-8 in the match races over Emirates, New Zealand.

Ben’s father captained a boat in the first Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973 and when he was 8 years old Ainslie took an initial interest in sailing after being given a small sailing dinghy by his parents. Such was his enthusiasm for the sport that he quickly progressed. At 12, he competed in the World Championships and at 18, won the gold at the World Youth Championships as well as became British Yachtsman of the Year.

An Olympic speaker whose competitive edge is simply unwavering, Ben is a person of interest for thousands of athletes seeking inspiration and motivation. The last time Ben went home with only a silver medal was in 1996 during his first taste of the Olympic Games. In the following years, he amassed nothing but the gold each time he competed in his sport.

In 2012, he became the first person sailor to consecutively win gold medals in four different Olympic Games – in Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012. Ben has also won the International Sailing Federation Top Award more times than anyone else, being named ISAF World Sailor of the Year in 1998, 2002, 2008 and 2012. His enduring fondness coupled with commitment for the sport has made him a world-class sailor. As  speaker, he talks about how physicality, skill, strategy and technique are equally important.

His autobiography titled ‘Close to the Wind’, covers most of his career including detailed stories of great races. He continues to train intensively despite having already reached the peaks of excellence and looks forward to his next conquest. For someone who once said that his greatest strength is never giving up, Ben indeed inspires and motivates as an Olympic speaker.

“A truly great speaker, Ben has the unique ability to inspire confidence, courage, and hope in people and learn about goal-setting, leadership, focus, self-motivation and commitment.”

A truly great and highly experienced speaker, Ben Ainslie shows audiences exactly what it takes to become an Olympic Champion.

Jim Steele

Jim Steele
  • Conference speaker specialising on performance improvement and leadership
  • Former insurance salesman turned leading motivational speaker
  • Spent 20 years researching peak performance and how to help people to reach new levels
  • Motivates and inspires over 40,000 professionals each year in companies across Europe & USA

Jim Steele is a professional speaker and performance coach specialising in the design and delivery of strategies for driving sustainable change within companies.

He has worked with hundreds of organisations throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia, and whether speaking at conferences, facilitating management off-sites or providing senior executive coaching he consistently demonstrates his proven ability to deliver material that motivates, educates, inspires and entertains… more importantly, he gets results!

Jim spent 9 years of his career working as a life insurance salesman with a multinational corporation where the future was decidedly bleak as he was merely an average performing agent but with a driving ambition nonetheless. The big break came when he was given the opportunity to follow a leading sales colleague closely. It was a time of self-realisation and redefinition of mindset which eventually changed his life for the better. His thirst for knowledge suddenly became unquenchable.

For 20 years, he read and studied tirelessly, focusing on how an average performer can be propelled to excellence. Since then has spent much of the last 20 years working with highly successful companies, teams and individuals from both the corporate sector as well as from the world of professional sport, seeking to understand how these people perform consistently at the highest level.

Jim shares cutting-edge performance strategies and offers delegates the necessary tools to apply these methods to impact business results. He works with clients to highlight the mindset and behaviours needed by those leading and managing the business as well as interventions to engage teams and inspire new ways of working.

Through his highly engaging and inspiring approach, Jim coaches proven principles, ideas and techniques that optimise individual and team performance. He works with leaders and their teams to navigate change and embrace the mindset and behaviours to respond resourcefully.

‘It is safe to say that we cannot control all of the circumstances and changes that we face but we can control how we respond to them’. – Jim Steele

Jim has the reputation of being a thrilling and amusing performer, some of the traits that give him the power to fascinate his audience. But his methodology goes beyond being a captivating motivational speaker. He presses on with a series of exercises and analogies designed to engage, challenge and entertain. And at the end of the day, Jim makes sure that his delegates leave the conference room armed with a positive outlook, a fresh mindset and a winning behaviour.

Keynotes

For each presentation, in consultation with the client, the content will be designed to match the context of the challenges faced by that particular audience. Topics include:

  • Personal and team leadership
  • Mastering motivation
  • Teamwork and collaboration
  • Communication skills
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Problem solving and resourcefulness
  • Power presentations
  • Coaching for peak performance

Outcomes

This approach to building resilience helps his groups and individuals to:

  • Exercise choice over personal motivation levels and maintain a resilient mindset irrespective of the challenges faced.
  • Challenge the constraints of their existing beliefs and attitudes
  • Use clear personal goals and desired outcomes to focus effort and give direction to day-to-day actions
  • Gain more understanding of how individuals and teams can reproduce their ‘best days’ consistently.
  • Aligned to key principles that help clients create change that sticks.
  • Encourage teams to engage, work together and to develop more effective communication and collaboration.

Clients

AIG Allienz AON Astra tech Astra Zeneca Allergan Bank of America Barclays Bayer Baxter BP Boerhinger Bibby financial Brammer British Telecom British Rugby League Team Clarins Cisco Coca Cola Credit Suisse Deloitte Deutsche Bank DHL Disney DuPont Ernst & Young Estee Lauder FedEx Ford Motors Fujitsu Gallagher’s Gilead Goedis Wilson GSK HSBC IBM Johnson and Johnson John Lewis JP Morgan Kcom Levis Lloyds L’Oreal Magnox Manchester City Football Club Merck Microsoft Nike Nomura Novartis PepsiCo Pfizer Proctor and Gamble RBS Roche Savills Shell Sodexo Swinton Three mobile TNT Transocean UBS Xstrata.

Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand Piccard speaker
  • Swiss pioneer and adventurer who in 2009 became the first person to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon 
  • In 2016 Piccard with André Borschberg, became the first to circumnavigate the globe by solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse
  • On the same day, they announced the creation of the International Committee of Clean Technologies
  • World class speaker on the need for all sectors to constantly innovate and set new targets for progress, and on ecological sustainability

A pioneer, explorer and innovator who moves outside customary certainties and stereotypes, Bertrand Piccard is first and foremost a visionary and a communicator. Born into a dynasty of explorers and scientists, he made the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon fight. Picard is an internationally renowned psychiatrist, aeronaut and lecturer, chairman of the Winds of Hope and of Solar Impulse, and a United Nations goodwill ambassador. He combines science and adventure to tackle some of the great challenges of our times.

Bertrand Piccard is also an author and a well-known speaker. His famous book ‘Around the World in 20 Days’ published in 2000 became an instant hit in France, USA, UK and Germany. His amazing speaking ability has helped him to be recognised among the world’s top motivational speakers. Bertrand Piccard is among Europe’s leading motivational speakers. He engages audiences through his adventure stories and then teaches them the importance of motivation and innovation to achieve the impossible.

Bertrand Piccard illustrates his concept of the psychology of life, human communication, team-work, motivation, pioneering spirit, as well as how to deal with stress, uncertainty and crises.

bertrand piccard 2 1024x307 - Bertrand Piccard

Gerald Ratner

Gerald Ratner 185
  • The CEO who destroyed his eponymous company overnight with a flippant comment to the media
  • A fascinating insight into Ratners, ‘Rise, Fall and Rise Again’ as he has rebuilt himself
  • One of UK businesses great stories told by a charismatic speaker that is still as relevant to companies today as it was in 1991

Gerald Ratner made one careless remark to bring down a billion-dollar enterprise, an error that would cause a brilliant businessman to resign from the family business where he was then Chairman and Chief Executive. Even over 20 years later Gerald Ratner’s story remains one of the most fascinating and popular on the business speaker circuit.Who would have thought that referring to a product in his company as crap could result to a staggering £500-million loss? It was simply unacceptable in the business community and soon he became an outcast without a home and a job. The year was 1991.

The rise back to financial freedom was an uphill climb for Gerald but he subsequently reached the summit, and made it big again. His incredible roller-coaster ride now qualifies him as one of the best business conference speakers in the country.

Clawing his way back to the top was painstakingly slow and difficult but he endured the consequences of his mistake and learned his lesson the hard way. Gerald is now CEO of the UK’s largest online jewellery business, a business he launched in 2004. In his endeavour as business speaker, he lectures on practical business principles and management strategies in a highly competitive marketplace. He is not ashamed to talk about his past errors but instead, looks at them as valuable lessons.

In 2007, Gerald published his book ‘Gerald Ratner: The Rise and Fall… and Rise Again’ which became an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Gerald has been on both sides of the wheel indeed, top to down and riches to rags. But today he is at the peak again – stronger than he ever was. He is also a charismatic and amusing motivational speaker with the innate ability to captivate his audiences with unbelievable stories of failure and success. He has no plans of ever “doing a Ratner” again.

To enquire about Gerald Ratner speaking please contact PROMOTIVATE Speakers Agency in London on 0207 8711829.

Sebastien Foucan

Seb
  • Expert on Parkour ‘free running’ and Hollywood movie star.
  • Noted for starring in the dramatic opening of Casino Royale, leaping over cranes and houses.
  • Can incorporate free running on large stages for something entirely different.

Sebastien Foucan is more than just a conference speaker. He’s got a mix of good genes, great talent and awe-inspiring life testimonials. James Bond aficionados may know him as the guy who’s made Mr. 007 himself sweat bullets while being chased on rooftops and cranes. As far as Casino Royale is concerned, his acting skills may not go beyond a myriad of blockbuster Hollywood movies but he’s a professional Parkour practitioner beyond comparison.

Parkour is a training discipline that involves running at unbelievable speed while overcoming obstacles and hurdles. Military men are familiar with this art of movement because it was developed out of military obstacle training courses. No one can free run like Sebastien can. He can outrun, out jump, and outlast the mightiest, and how they have fallen with him at the other side of the track. This extraordinary talent catapulted him to international fame and prompted him to become a sought-after conference speaker.

Remarkably despite being famous for jumping across roofs, Sebastien is scared of heights and tall buildings. This is where in addition to having terrific footage to share with audiences he talks of overcoming fear and retaining focus to achieve your goals.

Parkour may have been around for ages, but Sebastien, a simple man from France with big dreams, has certainly introduced Parkour to the rest of the world. Today he shares his life story unabashedly, injecting natural wit and humor to his speeches. As a speaker, he aims to give his audience a better understanding of his career as well as to impart motivation to those who want to achieve greatness through constant practice. He delivers his messages in a charming, enjoyable and memorable way in true Sebastien Foucan style. At present, he holds regular workshop sessions and training for all ages at his Free Running Academy.

Have Sebastien Free Run At Your Event – Sebastien is able to incorporate his free running into his programme to bring a touch excitement to conferences and events.

Richard Branson

richad profile
  • Britain’s best known entrepreneur, founder of the Virgin Group.  
  • Expert on brand building.
  • Author of best selling business books, philanthropist and exponent of climate change policy.

Sir Richard Branson is Britain’s best known entrepreneur, As founder and Chairman of Virgin Group, Richard is a pioneer in more many fields of business.

Branson showed signs of great entrepreneurship at a very young age. When he was only 16 years old, he delved into journalism and started his very own magazine called Student. He has since authored several best-selling business books. Today, based on Forbes  studies, Richard Branson is known as the 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom with an estimated net worth of US$4.2 billion.

Richard took his passion for business seriously and forayed deeper to build a chain of music stores called Virgin Records in 1972. The who’s who in the song industry considers Richard Branson a name to be revered. Before long, he, too, would top that very list and become one of UK’s wealthiest.

He would stress that fun has become his guiding principle and lives up to the attitude by taking part in various sporting adventures. The journey to success can actually be enjoyable! Richard also explored the travel industry and set up Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, the now famous airline company. Building a towering empire from scratch, Richard forged on to have more than 400 diverse companies under the Virgin Group.

Richard may have had his share of ups and downs, but no one can deny the fact that he has rightfully earned all his success. He copes with being dyslexic and has learned to excel more by connecting with people he meets. He supports a string of charitable foundations worldwide and teamed up with the equally iconic Nelson Mandela to form The Elders, an organization that promotes peace building, alleviates human suffering and upholds human interest. Branson is also the founder of Carbon War Room, a group that addresses global climate change.

As a conference speaker, Richard Branson reaches out to others in a manner that has truly made him the man he is today – a motivator, an inspiration, and a catalyst for world change.

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong
  • Won and lost seven Tour de France yellow jerseys.
  • At the forefront of what was described as the ‘most sophisticated doping programme ever.’
  • A story of epic proportion, doggedness and winning at all costs.
  • Lance’s own overcoming of cancer and the raising of millions for cancer sufferers.
  • The path to redemption and warning others of taking excessive risks in pursuit of success.

Lance Armstrong overcame testicular cancer in 1996 and went on to win an unrivalled seven consecutive Tour de France’s between 1998 and 2005 before receiving a lifetime ban in 2012 for doping offences.Armstrong founded the Livestrong Foundation to provide support for cancer patients which has raised in excess of $1/2 billion dollars to date. He is one of the most recognisable faces on the planet.

Lance began competitive sport as a triathlete aged 16 winning US national championships before switching to professional cycling in 1992 and winning a series of Category 1 races in Europe before being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996. With the cancer spreading to his brain and lungs he underwent  brain and testicular surgery with extensive chemotherapy.

In February 1997 he was declared cancer free and later that year renewed his serious cycling training and joined the US Postal/Discovery Team. With US Postal/Discovery Team he won an unprecedented seven back to back Tour de France’s. Lance retired after his seventh Tour de France win in 2005 but returned to competitive cycling with the Astana team in January 2009 and finished third in the 2009 Tour de France.

In February 2011 Armstrong announced his retirement from competitive cycling, while facing a US federal investigation into doping allegations. In August 2012 the USADA announced a lifetime ban from competition on Armstrong, applicable to all sports which follow the World Anti-Doping Agency code, as well as the stripping of all his seven Tour de France titles won between 1998 and 2005.

The USADA report concluded that Armstrong enforced “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport’s governing body, announced its decision to accept USADA’s findings. Armstrong chose not to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and in January 2013 he admitted doping in a television interview conducted by Oprah Winfrey, despite having made denials throughout his career.

Lance’s story of gargantuan success achieved after his battle with cancer was for over ten years probably one of the most inspiring personal triumphs over adversity in sports history. Millions bought Lance’s books ‘It’s Not About The Bike’  and ‘Every Second Counts’ and took inspiration from them.Armstrong  became one of the biggest names and a sponsors dream, living the life of a star, friends with US Presidents,  married to singer Sheryl Crow and with Hollywood A-listers on call. He has in excess of 4 million followers on Twitter and many more wore the yellow Livestrong bracelets.

Today

Lance Armstrong was one of the world’s most admired sportsmen and certainly one of three of the world’s most in-demand motivational speakers. He may have lost many of his fans but there are many that have benefitted from the work of the Livestrong Foundation and continue to support him because of the great deal he has done to inspire and support cancer sufferers.

Today Lance Armstrong has admitted what he did was wrong. He participated in an era of professional cycling where unfortunately the majority of cyclists used performance enhancing drugs. In losing his sponsors and also his prized yellow jerseys Armstrong has paid a high price for his involvement in cycling. There is no doubt that he was an incredible athlete before his Tour wins and there is no doubt that his raising awareness, hope and charity for cancer victims for millions of people has been a great achievement.

Armstrong owns a coffee shop in downtown Austin, Texas called Juan Pelota Cafe“. The name is a joking reference to his testicular cancer, with the name “Juan” being considered by some a homophone for “one” and “Pelota” being the Spanish word for “ball”. Out of the same building, Armstrong owns and operates a bike shop named “Mellow Johnny’s“, after another nickname of his derived from the Tour term “maillot jaune”, which is French for “yellow jersey.”

Today Lance now more than ever will be thankful that first and foremost he has lived to tell the tale.

Speaking

Whichever way you look at Lance Armstrong his story of highs and lows; his millions of fans; Livestrong success;  overcoming cancer; his rock star life and ultimately the loss and admittance of cheating to win can all be used to prevent others falling into the same traps. Cycling and other sports will hopefully benefit from the awareness his case has brought about the rampant use of drugs in sport that’s use goes undetected.

Lance has throughout his professional cycling career been one of the world’s most in-demand motivational speakers. Millions of people have benefitted from learning of his success in beating cancer and how he pushed his body to its limits and beyond. Those facts remain the same today.