Reacting to the End of Discovery Channel
The Tailwind Sports announcement on August 10 detailing the failure to secure a satisfactory sponser to replace Discovery Channel has, understandably, generated a wave of outspoken reaction. Citing factors such as the recent doping turmoil throughout the sport of cycling, the lack of a cohesive ownership and leadership groups and constant disputes between the ASO and UCI they decided to discontinue their search and step away from the sport. They emphasised that they would have had no problem securing a sponser, they just felt they couldn’t recommend a company spend the money required to sponser the team given the current environment.
As I said, there was considerable reaction to the announcement, so hows about we take a little shufti at how the bloggers saw things.
First we’ll stop off at Cyclocosm, one of my favourite blogs where you can rely on opeinions being fired straight down the line. Titled The Tailwind Backstab we can see right from the off that the tone of the article is one of animosity…to say the least. Reading further we can see that Lance Armstrong is referred to as Ole’ One-Nut and this post gets us off to an entertaining start.
A more measured post comes to us from the pages of Cycloblog sticks largely to the facts complete with quotes. Titled Discovery to disband at end of season this is an informative post that tells you all you need to know with a minimum of fuss.
Onward to Spinopsys and we are reminded that “that there’s a group of Kazakh corporations who may be in need of a new branding vehicle” in the Disco dead? article. Philip has provided ASO with a few choice suggestions as well as a possible outcome in next year’s Tour de France.
At Spare Cycles the Discovery announcement proved to be all a bit mysterious suggesting that they made a mistake poaching from the ranks of Operation Puerto suspects. Plenty of “what if” scenarios raised in this article.
The story is combined with links to the Alberto Contador “I don’t dope” interview as well as the Team Slipstream groundswell over at TDFblog.
Cycling Fans Anon. is another source of ultra-entertaining posts about all the latest goss and I knew I would be in for a treat when the post covering the Disco news was titled Jumping Ship. And I wasn’t disappointed. This little snippet should have you hot-footing it over to read more: “For the royalty of American cycling to show such a selfish, short-sighted, and narcissistic attitude toward the very sport that made them, it is nothing less than revolting.” Yep…I reckon you can see where they’re coming from over at CFA.
But if it’s a good ole fashioned Rant you’re after, the place to head is Rant Your Head Off who started out with the bemused tone of Tailwind Tailspin calling it a “strange turn of events”. This is then followed up with a very interesting quote from Lance Armstrong about the sponsership problem (part of the Sunday Short Takes post). (Incidentally, cograts to RYHO which is celebrating the first anniversary of the blog - onya!)
I’ll finish the round-up off with an intriguing “back of the envelop” type pondering over at Podium Cafe about which of the Discovery Channel team members would be a good fit to help Cadel Evans win next year’s Tour de France. Hmmm, certainly food for thought given the strength of the riders suddenly on the open market at season’s end.
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