As cycling loses face, Armstrong’s team disbands

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Armstrong and Bill Stapleton, the team’s general manager, said that they had been “90 per cent there” to securing a new sponsorship deal, but that the upheavals in the sport were too much to overcome. “We finally concluded that we couldn’t in good conscience make a recommendation to a company to spend the sort of money that is necessary,” Stapleton said.

Armstrong agreed. “There are too many questions in the sport,” he said, citing, in addition to the doping scandals, the poor relationship that was evident last month between the company that organises the Tour de France and the International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body, which oversees competition but does not control most of the sport’s top events.

The Discovery/Postal Service team had no shortage of success: Armstrong won a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles, and this year’s winner, Alberto Contador of Spain, and the third-place finisher, Levi Leipheimer of the United States, wore Discovery jerseys.

And although none of its riders have ever failed a drug test, 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 similar allegations for much of his career

“It’s sad for cycling, and it’s certainly sad for American cycling,” Armstrong said. He added that while he believes the sport will go on and eventually will right itself, “I’m not confident that will happen in the next 12 months.”

The Discovery Channel team, which is participating in the Tour of Germany, will finish out its schedule of races this year, including the Tour of Spain in September. The team, including Contador, Leipheimer, and George Hincapie, will ride in the inaugural Tour of Missouri from September 11-16.

(Juliet Macur contributed to the story)