So yeah, another Tour, another doping scandal (or three). Saunier Duval has elected to drop its sponsorship in light of the recently uncovered doping habits of Ricardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli. Which is, on many levels, understandable enough. But as anyone who saw the photos of the Saunier Duval team mechanics – sitting on the side of the road, crying their eyes out, heads in their hands – knows, there’s more to any given team than a couple of riders. And with a view to that, Scott is going to carry the team through the end of the season:
Scott, second sponsor of the Saunier Duval-Scott cycling team, will continue to support the squad managed by Mauro Gianetti.
Scott think that the situation the team coped with during the Tour de France resulted from individual choices and that the team and their managers did everything they could to avoid this kind of situations.
“To leave the team and seek for other sponsorship opportunities would be the easiest thing for us to do. However, we trust the team´s young riders and staff. They do not have to pay for the mistakes made by individual riders, and this is why we´ve decided to stand by the team. We´ll continue to support Mauro Gianetti´s men so that they can go on competing this season. We consider this tough situation as a chance to struggle against doping and we´ll ask for anti-doping tests to be stricter in the future. All the riders in the team have signed the so-called biological passport, and we believe this is great a step forward to eliminate doping from cycling. We´ll not leave the team, as all the people in it have done an excellent job in the past years. We want the young riders of the team to be given a chance.” Pascal Ducrot, Vice-President of Scott Sports, S.A.
Scott. They make nice bikes.
(h/t to Cycleto.com for the release.)