Lance Armstrong is one of THE great sporting figures.

Coming back from cancer that had spread throughout his body, Lance went on to dominate the world of cycling, including ending up winning the grueling Tour de France a record-breaking seven years, until he retired in 2005.

Now, I live in a city of 1 million people in Adelaide, Australia.

If you know Australia as a vast island the size of the US, Adelaide is along the middle, down the bottom, on the coast.

My little city has been trying to get a name for itself for a long time.

Our state of South Australia (pretty descriptive huh) is known for it’s wines and wineries.

We are also the driest state in the driest continent on earth. Maybe that’s why the wineries.

Our city of Adelaide is known as the City of Churches. Not much excitement there.

For a number of years we hosted Australia’s Formula 1 car racing Gran Prix, before it was taken east to Melbourne.

We also had a spate of serial killers that seemed to make our state well-known for a while, but we didn’t push that very much.

Anyway…

For the last few years we have hosted the ‘Tour Down Under’ – the event that kicks off the professional road racing calender.

This year the big news was that Lance Armstrong chose this race to come out of retirement and get back to cycling.

The event was dubbed the Tour de Lance. 35% more attendance at the Tour event. Major, major international publicity.

But in the end, Adelaide is still unknown.

As I contact people all around the world the commonest way people outside Australia say they have heard of Adelaide is that they passed through or over us as they crossed the country on holiday.

“Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.”

Do you feel like everyone is passing you by too?

Perhaps it’s because you are like my town of Adelaide; trying to act bigger than you are and be all things to all people.

You don’t need people’s awareness.

Instead you need to be something very special to a very particular group of people who will be fans, advocates, and eager word of mouthers.

Be Lance Armstrong.

-Martin Russell

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