Armstrong as ex-World Champion

[Will1985]

Something has been bugging me for a while but I have kept forgetting to follow it up until now when I saw a 2002 picture of Armstrong in a USPS jersey with World Champ rings on the sleeves as is customary. However when the team changed to Discovery in 2004, he dropped the rings. Any significance to this, or did he prefer to have everyone wearing the Livestrong sleeve band instead?

 

[walker]

thats 2 years since he won it, he lost it the following year to Luc Leblanc (I'm sure that was his surname)

 

[Will1985]

He won it in 1993 - but this was a decade later. I'm talking about the sleeve/collar rings for ex-champions à la Freire, Boonen etc... They are there on his USPS kit, but not on his Discovery kit.

 

[walker]

Ah you mean this

 

[Will1985]

Exactly - cannot find a single picture post-USPS with the rings. Just wondered why...

 

[zimzum42]

Maybe Disco wanted him to be seen wearing a jersey that you can buy, rather than 98% of the jersey you can buy.

Chances are it's something to do with the money/merchandising men.....

 

[Keith Oates]

I never spotted that before, good observation Will. However the reason is also not known to me unless he just didn't like the idea out of personal choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[walker]

is it not something to do with the sponsors? I.e. Giro sponsors Freir and they now own the rights to add the rainbow colours to all their sponsored teams?

 

[k-dog]

As far as I know it's an optional thing. Lance wore them early on but then stopped wearing them.

Ullrich did the same I think.

 

[Tetedelacourse]

It is indeed optional. It would be naive to think that Disco requested their removal from Uncle Lance.