Sponsorship Fallout Following Doping Scandals

After Tailwind Sports disbanded, the team that was sponsored by US Postal Service and Discovery Channel, which won an unprecedented 8 Tours de France, no one could believe their stated reasons that sponsoring an international cycling team was a bad investment, and they didn't want to cheat a company out of a dozen million dollars. As usual, Tailwind was way ahead of the game, as we now have news that Adidas is pulling its sponsorship of T-Mobile. Adidas cites all the doping scandals rocking the German team, and no longer wants to be associated with the negative press coverage. A question for the Tailwind execs: did you pull the plug before doping scandals rocked your own team? Not one rider during the American team's successful run through Europe has ever been convicted of doping while on the team. Several have been convicted or confessed to doping while riding for their new team, after they left Tailwind, such as Roberto Heras, Tyle Hamilton, and Floyd Landis, who is still appealing his conviction. Ivan Basso is a special case, where he confessed that he attempted to dope while he was on CSC, but before he joined Discovery Channel.

So, was it getting harder for Tailwind Sports to get around the doping controls, or did they really feel the anti-doping climate was making even the insinuation of doping difficult for a team to race? The insinuations of doping have definitely shelved Jan Ullrich's career, and he has never tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. He had to sit out for a few months because of ecstasy, but that had nothing to do with gaining an unfair advantage over the peloton. My feeling is that even if Tailwind instituted a much more intrusive doping control protocol, much like Slipstream does, an individual rider can still find a way to circumvent those controls, and end up hurting the entire team when he's caught during one of the big road races. That certainly happened with Cofodis and Astana, when one guy got caught cheating, and the entire team had to abandon the Tour de France. The liability is just too high, and I guess that opinion is bearing out with an action like Adidas abandoning T-Mobile.