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Tour de France Winner’s Team Will Disband
The cycling team of Lance Armstrong and this year’s Tour de France winner is disbanding, the latest and perhaps most high-profile entity to collapse in a sport wracked by persistent doping problems. Sponsors have fled the sport, and Armstrong’s team was unable to find a replacement for the Discovery Channel.
The Discovery team was owned by Tailwind Sports, a company based in Austin, Tex., that is co-owned by Armstrong. The team had no shortage of success on the bike: Armstrong won a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles with the team, and this year’s winner, Alberto Contador of Spain, and third-place finisher, Levi Leipheimer of the United States, wore Discovery jerseys.
“This is arguably the most successful sports franchise in the history of sport,” Bill Stapleton, Tailwind’s general manager, said in a statement. “This was a difficult decision, not made any easier by our recent Tour de France success. We were in talks with a number of companies about the opportunity and were confident a new sponsor was imminent. We have chosen, however, to end those discussions.”
The Discovery team was not able to avoid the suspicions of doping that have beset the sport. Contador held a news conference in Spain yesterday to deny the doping allegations that plagued him even before his victory last month. Armstrong was dogged by doping allegations for much of his career, though he has never tested positive and has denied ever doping. Discovery hired Ivan Basso to be its leader in December only to fire him in the spring after he became the target of an Italian investigation.
Three riders in this year’s Tour — not members of the Discovery team — tested positive during the race. The race leader was ejected after the 16th stage for lying to doping officials and another rider was found to have failed an out of competition drug test.
Armstrong said in a statement that Tailwind would continue to operate but shift its attention to other sports.
“Clearly things need to improve on many levels, with a more unified front, before you would see us venture back into cycling,” he said.
Alberto Contador said at a press conference Friday in Spain he was never involved in doping and will answer anti-doping authorities' questions and even provide DNA. Tailwind and its predecessor companies have been involved in cycling teams since 1989. In 1996, the team expanded after obtaining the United States Postal Service as its sponsor. Armstrong’s comeback from cancer and victory in the 1999 Tour gave the team its reputation as a major squad. For three years, Armstrong was teammates on the Postal Service squad with Floyd Landis, who finished first in the Tour last year with the Phonak team and later was found to have failed a drug test on his way to the title. He is awaiting the results of a disciplinary hearing.
The Discovery cable channel became the team’s sponsor in 2004. It is not the first major American cycling team to fold. The team that first employed Armstrong and was the first American squad at the Tour de France, under the name 7-Eleven, abandoned the sport in 1996, unable to replace Motorola as its sponsor.
Werner Franke, a cell and molecular biologist and antidoping campaigner in Germany, recently sent the World Anti-Doping Agency and German officials documents related to a doping investigation in Spain. He claims the documents indicate that Contador was linked a doctor who provided drugs to athletes.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the controversy that has surrounded him since the Tour, Contador read a statement at the offices of the Spanish Sports Council but declined to field any questions. He was joined at the news conference by the Discovery team’s director, Johan Bruyneel, and Jaime Lissavetzky, Spain’s sports minister.
“I’ve never committed a doping offense,” Contador said. “I’ve never been involved in any act of doping. I’m available to all competent authorities in the matter of doping, and will answer any questions, including providing my DNA.”
Contador did not say what his plans are once Discovery folds at the end of this season.
Bruyneel, 42, told the Belgian television network VRT yesterday that he would quit cycling. “I spoke to a few potential sponsors, but the situation in the sport is such that big companies don’t feel at ease being associated with cycling,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the network’s Web site. “I’m going to call it a day as well. After Lance Armstrong, I wanted to win the Tour one more time and now that’s happened with Alberto Contador.”
