Thursday’s EuroFile: Bruyneel confident in sponsor search; Unibet won’t be at the Vuelta either
- By Andrew Hood
- Published Jun. 21, 2007
Discovery Channel sport director Johan Bruyneel expressed confidence that a new title sponsor will be secured for the 2008 season.
Discovery Channel announced February it would end its three-year title sponsorship with the team at the end of the 2007 season. Bruyneel, who, along with Lance Armstrong and Bill Stapleton, owns a part of the team, said the title sponsor hunt continues.
“I’m confident. I am optimistic about the future of the team,” Bruyneel told VeloNews. “There are still a lot of things going on as we speak. We’re pushing hard and it could happen at any moment.”
Bruyneel also confirmed reports that the team has expanded its sponsor search to Asia.
He pointed out the team already has links to China with the presence of Chinese rider Fuyu Li, who became the first Chinese rider in the ProTour league when he signed with Discovery Channel this season.
The team will also race at the Tour of Quinghai Lake in China for the first time later this summer.
Bruyneel also said sponsor hunts are never a precise science and said deals often materialize from unexpected circumstances.
“When we got Discovery Channel, it really came out of nowhere. We were close with another big sponsor and at a certain moment it was almost done, but they decided not to sponsor the team,” he said. “Then Discovery expressed interest and within 10 days we had a deal.”
The team hopes to have something finalized to make an announcement during next month’s Tour de France.
Unibet, Relax snubbed for Vuelta
Hard times for Unibet.com continue as Vuelta a España organizers announced the beleaguered ProTour team will not be among its 22-team field for the season’s third grand tour.
Following the line of the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, Vuelta officials didn’t include Unibet.com among its list of teams released for the 2007 Vuelta, set for September 1-23.
Vuelta also snubbed Spanish team Relax-GAM, whose roster is replete with riders linked to the Operación Puerto blood-doping scandal, including Oscar Sevilla and Paco Mancebo. Both were excluded from the start of last year’s Tour and their presence won’t be welcomed at the Vuelta. Organizers also overlooked the Fuerteventura team, which includes many members and staff of the old Kelme/Comunidad Valenciana squads.
Earning wild-card bids were Andalucía-Cajasur and Karpin-Galicia. The Vuelta starts September 1 in Spain’s Galicia region.
Teams for Vuelta a España (Sept. 1-23) AstanaAG2R- PrévoyanceBouygues TelecomCaisse d’EpargneCofidisCrédit AgricoleDiscovery ChannelEuskaltel-EuskadiFrançaise des JeuxGerolsteinerLampre-FonditalLiquigasPredictor-LottoQuickstep-InnergeticRabobankSaunier Duval-ProdirT-MobileTeam MilramTeam CSCAndalucía CajasurKarpin Galicia
CSC revealing test results on web site
Team CSC said it will reveal results from the team’s ground-breaking anti-doping program on the team’s official website beginning Thursday (www. team-csc.com).
Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard, a Danish anti-doping expert, and Bispebjerg University Hospital will reveal all midyear results of the Team CSC Anti-Doping Program on the team’s website Thursday afternoon, the team announced.
The team’s 28 riders have been subjected to more than 400 surprise out-of-competition tests conducted throughout the season. Included were 198 urine tests and 225 blood tests.
The urine tests all came back negative and the blood tests have been below standards set by the UCI and even lower limits introduced by Damsgaard. The so-called “blood profiles” all fall within physiological norm for any normal human being, the team announced. “The program has had three main objectives: To catch cheaters and detect doping, to set entirely new standards for the future fight against doping and to maintain the health and integrity of the riders,” Damsgaard said in a team statement. “We have created the most rigid testing system in the entire history of the sport, and none of our results have indicated anything suspicious whatsoever. Both I and the UCI consider this program groundbreaking and in future it will hopefully gain a lot of support from the sports world in general.”
FILED UNDER: Road
Andrew Hood
Hood cut his journalistic teeth at Colorado dailies before the web boom opened the door to European cycling in the mid-1990s. Hood's covered every Tour since 1996 and has been VeloNews' European correspondent since 2002. He lives in Leon, Spain, when he's not chasing bike races.