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. 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
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
As of April 30, 2007.
|
Rider |
Date of birth |
Fumiyuki Beppu (JPN) |
(1983-04-10) April 10, 1983 (age 41) |
Volodymyr Bileka (UKR) |
(1979-02-06) February 6, 1979 (age 45) |
Janez Brajkovič (SLO) |
(1983-12-18) December 18, 1983 (age 40) |
Alberto Contador (ESP) |
(1982-12-06) December 6, 1982 (age 41) |
Antonio Cruz (USA) |
(1971-10-31) October 31, 1971 (age 53) |
Steve Cummings (GBR) |
(1981-03-19) March 19, 1981 (age 43) |
Tom Danielson (USA) |
(1978-03-13) March 13, 1978 (age 46) |
Allan Davis (AUS) |
(1980-07-27) July 27, 1980 (age 44) |
John Devine (USA) (From July 2007) |
(1985-11-02) November 2, 1985 (age 39) |
Stijn Devolder (BEL) |
(1979-08-29) August 29, 1979 (age 45) |
Vladimir Gusev (RUS) |
(1982-07-04) July 4, 1982 (age 42) |
George Hincapie (USA) |
(1973-06-29) June 29, 1973 (age 51) |
Levi Leipheimer (USA) |
(1973-10-24) October 24, 1973 (age 51) |
Fuyu Li (CHN) |
(1978-05-09) May 9, 1978 (age 46) |
|
|
|
Rider |
Date of birth |
Trent Lowe (AUS) |
(1984-10-08) October 8, 1984 (age 40) |
Egoi Martínez (ESP) |
(1978-05-15) May 15, 1978 (age 46) |
Jason McCartney (USA) |
(1973-09-03) September 3, 1973 (age 51) |
Gianni Meersman (BEL) |
(1985-12-05) December 5, 1985 (age 38) |
Uroš Murn (SLO) |
(1975-02-09) February 9, 1975 (age 49) |
Benjamín Noval (ESP) |
(1979-01-23) January 23, 1979 (age 45) |
Pavel Padrnos (CZE) |
(1970-12-17) December 17, 1970 (age 53) |
Sérgio Paulinho (POR) |
(1980-03-26) March 26, 1980 (age 44) |
Yaroslav Popovych (UKR) |
(1980-01-04) January 4, 1980 (age 44) |
José Luis Rubiera (ESP) |
(1973-01-27) January 27, 1973 (age 51) |
Tomas Vaitkus (LTU) |
(1982-02-04) February 4, 1982 (age 42) |
Jurgen Van Goolen (BEL) |
(1980-11-28) November 28, 1980 (age 43) |
Dennis Dunse Jensen (DEN) |
(1995-03-15) March 15, 1995 (age 29) |
Matt White (AUS) |
(1974-02-22) February 22, 1974 (age 50) |
|
- Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team
- U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team
Images for kids
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L-to-R: Armstrong, Azevedo, and Ekimov of the 2004 USPS team
See also
In Spanish: US Postal (equipo ciclista) para niños