Story on the wires is Discovery will disband and Tailwind Sports will be shut.
All eyes on Contador later as well, I guess.
US press now running with it. LA Times, USA Today…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-sp-cycle10aug10,1,3407791.story?coll=la-headlines-business
I can assure you that if I was CEO of a major US corporation, spending big bucks on sponsoring a cycling team would be about the last thing I would want to do now.
What a shame, I think this whole doping mess has guaranteed that professional cycling will again be relegated to the very bottom of the sports hierarchy in the US.
Presumably Contador’s TDF win is about to go the way of Landis’ win. But I’m sure it will turn out he is being unjustly pilloried, just as sweet, innocent Floyd was unfairly brought down by incompetent testing, and Tyler was brought down by a not-ready-for prime time test (after all, how can a dog lover be a cheat and a liar?)… and I’m also sure that OJ will any day announce he has found the true killer…
About the only thing truly surprising in that article is that Hincapie is signing with T-Mobile now after all the Slipstream rumors about him.
With Hincapie taking about $500-$750,000 a year, there was no way he was signing with Slipstream. My guess for Slipstream is that Floyd gets vindicated and signs with them.
Cycling news article with all the gory details
Mash here
.
George on T-Mobile?!!! Gross.
Well, rumors and innunedos aside, you can’t argue that they didn’t go out on top. The team rewrote the record books and how a grand tour can be won. Some called it boring racing, but it was a revolution, one that Rasmussen used this year until the truth came out. I’ll miss the Disco team for sure.
That said, it’llbe interesting to see who winds up where. My guess is Danielson goes to Slipstream now and Contador to, hmm, i don’t know, maybe Rabobank or T-Mobile?
Bob
Wow…I didn’t see this coming at all.
What’s it gonna take for a cycling team - for pro cycling in general - to stick here in NFL/NASCAR nation?
A sad day for pro cycling.
What’s it gonna take for a cycling team - for pro cycling in general - to stick here in NFL/NASCAR nation?
The only way this will ever happen would be if you allowed the athletes to punch and kick each other during the race, use large-breasted tattooed women drinking beer named Vicki and Shirley to advertise the races, and install engine-sounds on the bikes to it “sounds cool”. America loves violence, women, and beer. NFL/NASCAR provides all three at the same time.
So, looks like my crazy theory about Slipstream “replacing” Discovery isn’t so crazy after all …
Gee, i wonder if signing a high profile needle jockey like Basso, only to have it blow up in their faces, had anything to do with this?
You make a good point, but I would suggest there has been a cloud over the team with the negative (largely speculative) press surrounding the Armstrong era. This looming spectre of impropriety has caused insiders to wonder if there is a cycling “Three Mile Island” type melt down coming. Discovery leaving is indicative of that.
To a degree, I am glad this era is over. While Armstrong’s contributions to the American popularization of the sport can’t be diminished, the attendant controversy has exerted perhaps a greater level of harm.
What will emerge in subsequent years will hopefully be a newer, cleaner sport.
I would have thought someone would have sponsored the team regardless of all the other crap going on. You get great advertising on the world stage and isn’t any advertising good 
perhaps the flame was getting too close to the fuel.
I wonder how Trek will handle this. I hope they didn’t build too many of those new Madones hoping to capitalize on new success at Discovery. Perhaps they’ll approach Slipstream or another Pro Tour Team for that matter.
I believe Slipstream already has a fantastic bike sponsor 
.
There are 14,000 ST users. If we all contribute $1,000 then we can sponsor the Slowtwitch Forum team.
What will emerge in subsequent years will hopefully be a newer, cleaner sport.
So Discovery is the poster child for doping? Talk about death by innuendo. What is the point of testing clean if merely repeating the allegation enough times makes it a fact?
Tom:
Sure there has been a cloud over Postal/Discovery since 1998 or 1999. I mean, how can a man who was given a death sentence do what Lance did? Clearly it must be drugs and doping. I don’t know if he doped or not, no except the inner circle does, but I think much has been made of his impossible feats after near death. When people see miraculous, phoenix like comebacks, our nature is to doubt. Lance passed every test since 1999 (He did have a waiver for the cream) and that’s good enough for me…
Also, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved this years Tour. So much good racing and excitement over the “Get him to the last climb and let him go” model that had been used in the past.
Finally, I would argue that Discovery leaving has more to do with Discovery changing tacts than the impact of doping on the cycling world in general. With guys like Bob Stapleton running big teams like T Mob, the sport will get cleaned up and I am glad for that. There will always be cheaters and lets hope they get caught and dealt with harshly.
Bob