Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team

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The Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team was a professional racing team.

The US Postal Service stopped sponsoring their team in 2004. The Discovery Channel took over sponsorship in June 2004 in time for the new UCI ProTour

On February 10 2007 Discovery Channel decided not renew its sponsorship of the team at the end of the 2007 season.[1] The decision to end its sponsorship is believed to be related to the sacking of Discovery Networks president Billy Campbell by David Zaslav, the new president of Discovery Communications the same day.

On 10 August 2007 Tailwind Sports, who are the team's licence holders, said the team would stop racing at the end of the year<. They could not find a new sponsor and blamed bad publicity about doping in the 2007 Tour de France.

Members[change | change source]

The most famous member of the Discovery Channel team was Lance Armstrong who won seven Tours de France before he retired in 2005.

Current members of the team, such as 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, 3rd placed Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie all had to find new teams. Hincapie joined Team T-Mobile. Many think Contador may have trouble finding a new team because of rumours about being involved in the very big Operation Puerto doping scandal.

2007 squad[change | change source]

As of April 30, 2007.[2]

Rider Date of birth
 Fumiyuki Beppu (JPN) April 10, 1983 (1983-04-10) (age 34)
 Volodymyr Bileka (UKR) February 6, 1979 (1979-02-06) (age 38)
 Janez Brajkovič (SLO) December 18, 1983 (1983-12-18) (age 33)
 Alberto Contador (ESP) December 6, 1982 (1982-12-06) (age 34)
 Antonio Cruz (USA) October 31, 1971 (1971-10-31) (age 45)
 Steve Cummings (GBR) March 19, 1981 (1981-03-19) (age 36)
 Tom Danielson (USA) March 13, 1978 (1978-03-13) (age 39)
 Allan Davis (AUS) July 27, 1980 (1980-07-27) (age 37)
 John Devine[3] (USA) (From July 2007) November 2, 1985 (1985-11-02) (age 31)
 Stijn Devolder (BEL) August 29, 1979 (1979-08-29) (age 38)
 Vladimir Gusev (RUS) July 4, 1982 (1982-07-04) (age 35)
 George Hincapie (USA) June 29, 1973 (1973-06-29) (age 44)
 Levi Leipheimer (USA) October 24, 1973 (1973-10-24) (age 43)
 Fuyu Li (CHN) May 9, 1978 (1978-05-09) (age 39)
Rider Date of birth
 Trent Lowe (AUS) October 8, 1984 (1984-10-08) (age 33)
 Egoi Martínez (ESP) May 15, 1978 (1978-05-15) (age 39)
 Jason McCartney (USA) September 3, 1973 (1973-09-03) (age 44)
 Gianni Meersman (BEL) December 5, 1985 (1985-12-05) (age 31)
 Uroš Murn (SLO) February 9, 1975 (1975-02-09) (age 42)
 Benjamín Noval (ESP) January 23, 1979 (1979-01-23) (age 38)
 Pavel Padrnos (CZE) December 17, 1970 (1970-12-17) (age 46)
 Sérgio Paulinho (POR) March 26, 1980 (1980-03-26) (age 37)
 Yaroslav Popovych (UKR) January 4, 1980 (1980-01-04) (age 37)
 José Luis Rubiera (ESP) January 27, 1973 (1973-01-27) (age 44)
 Tomas Vaitkus (LTU) February 4, 1982 (1982-02-04) (age 35)
 Jurgen Van Goolen (BEL) November 28, 1980 (1980-11-28) (age 36)
 Dennis Dunse Jensen (DEN) March 15, 1995 (1995-03-15) (age 22)
 Matt White (AUS) February 22, 1974 (1974-02-22) (age 43)

References[change | change source]

  1. ↑ George, Sue (2007-02-10). "Discovery Channel to end sponsorship". Cyclingnews.com. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/feb07/feb10news. Retrieved 2007-02-10.
  2. ↑ "Team Discovery Channel Challenge 2007–THE RIDERS". http://thepaceline.com/challenge/team.aspx. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
  3. ↑ "Discovery Channel finalises '07 roster". Cyclingnews.com. 2007-01-16. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/jan07/jan16news. Retrieved 2007-02-13.

Other websites[change | change source]

Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team
U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team
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