He beat cancer and won that phony Tour de France thing seven times, but Lance Armstrong's insatiable appetite for blondes of every shade from dirty to platinum is totally overshadowing all of his causes. "BOTH Lances were in town last week.The first, Lance Armstrong the bicycle champion and anticancer campaigner, was making television appearances to promote a new Web venture, livestrong.com, devoted to healthy living [...] But there was also plenty of publicity unauthorized by Mr. Armstrong, including three days of coverage in The New York Post, a string of articles on Us Magazine's Web site and an article in Life & Style entitled 'How Lance Stole Kate From Owen,' all chronicling Mr. Armstrong's relationship with the actress and tabloid darling Kate Hudson. This is the second Lance, the one people.com called a 'notorious Texas playboy.'"

Friends confirmed reports that Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Hudson had kindled their relationship in the Bahamas in May, after she broke up with the actor Owen Wilson. Last week, the couple spent Father's Day in Brooklyn, attended an Iron Maiden concert at Madison Square Garden and stopped in at her West Village town house. "Kate's date," The Post called Mr. Armstrong in a headline, reducing the seven-time Tour de France champion to the role of a star's suitor.



"I don't have the bike anymore," he says in a video on the Web site of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which was founded in 1997 to empower people affected by cancer, a nonprofit related to the new, commercial livestrong.com. "This is the new fight. This is what I live for."



But increasingly, it is not what he is becoming known for. Ask Larry Wallach what is the first thing that pops to mind when he hears Mr. Armstrong's name, and Mr. Wallach, a salesman at Sid's Bikes on West 19th Street in Manhattan, replies, "How he spent Father's Day with his new girlfriend."



Ask others in the shop, or read the comments on the Web under news items about Mr. Armstrong. Many people seem to mention his two-year relationship with the singer Sheryl Crow, his romance with the fashion designer Tory Burch and his canoodling last year in a New York nightclub with Ashley Olsen, rather than his serious pursuits.



"This guy has had more woman on his lap than a napkin," wrote a typical commenter on ABC News's Web site under a story entitled "Kate Hudson hops on the Tour de Lance." "He is a serial dater and I've lost respect for him."



Those glamorous high-profile women can be a lot of weight to carry around. Some experts in philanthropy say Mr. Armstrong risks detracting from his heroic image, and damaging his effectiveness as an anticancer advocate.



"He should be concerned about the impact of how he dates on the seriousness of his legacy," said Claire L. Gaudiani, a professor of philanthropy and fund-raising at New York University, who has followed Mr. Armstrong's work and his image. "He's got a great role to play, but it doesn't have to be in bars or on red carpets with lovely young people. That will ruin his capacity to do the work he has said is important to him." [NYT]

But isn't bedding an Olsen twin a cause in itself?