Cycling:Deutsche Telekom has decided to continue its 16-year involvement in cycling and continue its sponsorship of Team T-Mobile despite a series of recent doping scandals that cheapened this year's Tour de France.
A Team T-Mobile spokesman told a news conference in Saarbruecken today that Deutsche Telekom management last night made the decision to honour their contract which runs until the end of 2010.
"With continuity and dependability, we want to send the signal that this sport needs," Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile International and a Telekom board member, said in a statement on the team's website www.t-mobile-team.com.
"We want to continue our involvement in cycling and support it in the fight to create a clean sport," he said.
Deutsche Telekom had come under increasing pressure to reconsider its sponsorship of T-Mobile amid concern doping scandals could tarnish the company's image.
T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz was fired last month after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone. He said he had used a gel containing the male hormone.
Former riders from Team Telekom - the predecessor to T-Mobile - Erik Zabel, Rolf Aldag and 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, have admitted using illegal performance-enhancing substances.
T-Mobile said today that it had agreed with riders and management that they would each contribute a portion of their salary towards a fund to be worth €1 million to help in the fight against doping.
Testing rules would be tightened and the team would cooperate with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and Germany's national agency, Nada, it added.