(Left to right: High Road, Slipstream, BMC)
When the Discovery Channel pro cycling team closed up shop at the end of last season, I was afraid my days of rooting for a US-based “home team” at the major European races were over.
Instead, I'll have to choose from three: High Road Sports, BMC Racing and Slipstream Chipotle-H3O.
High Road Sports is the team that T-Mobile abandoned after the disclosure of the team's long history of doping became public last year. Earlier this month, the team of George Hincapie moved its HQ from Germany to San Luis Obispo, making it the only US-based ProTour team.
Then the UCI government body of pro cycling announced it would include two US-based Pro Continental teams — BMC and Slipstream — among the 15 continental teams allowed to compete on the international level on the UCI ProTour. Now, instead of no teams, I have three.
High Road
Of course the only problem is that race organizers sometimes make their own rules about whom to invite, and the Giro d'Italia bosses didn't invite High Road Sports because of last year's problems. (High Road did make the cut for Paris Nice, however.)
High Road is making an extra effort to remain clean this year, the SFGate reports. Owner and manager Bob Stapleton has contracted with the Agency for Cycling Ethics to conduct at least 26 blood and urine tests on the cyclists to get a profile for each athlete. This will be independent of what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) might do.
New jerseys
The team will be sporting new jerseys at the Amgen Tour of California which starts Sunday in Palo Alto. The black has been jettisoned for basically white jerseys.
The jersey also carries a logo for Right to Play, a charity that brings sports to children in war-torn and impoverished nations. High Road will raise funds for the group, which runs programs for some 400,000 children in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Other US teams
Team Slipstream-Chipotle started last year under the direction of former pro cyclist Jonathan Vaughters. This year it features well-known American cyclists David Zabriskie (formerly CSC), Tom Danielson (from Discovery) and Christian Vande Velde (also from CSC), among some international stars. So far, Slipstream has been invited to the Giro d'Italia and Paris-Nice.
BMC Racing competed last year, but is new to the Pro Continental level this year. It's headed by director sportif John LeLangue, who held the same position with Phonak in 2006. Notables includes Jeff Louder (from HealthNet) and sprinter Tony Cruz (from Discovery).
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