Cycling: Tour of Courage: Big Success

The 'star power' possessed by Lance Armstrong is undeniable. Although I had my back to the rear entrance of the Thompson Room at Calgary's Hyatt Regency hotel as Lance strode in with the organisers of the Tour of Courage fundraising event for a private meeting, you could feel the electricity in the room.


The sequel to the 'Beyond Courage' gala fundraiser, held in November of last year was again, a resounding success with none of the approximately 1,000 seats going unsold. In its quest to raise $6 million to fund a ground-breaking research project at Calgary's Tom Baker cancer centre investigating the effects of exercise on the onset, prognosis and treatment of various forms of cancer, the Tour of Courage organisers are within $500,000 of that lofty goal. Armstrong, too, noted that while he originally predicted that a total of $500,000 would be raised for cancer research by the now-famous 'Livestrong' yellow bracelet programme, the total raised by that effort currently stands at $14 million. There can be no better demonstration of the power of Lance Armstrong's story.