2008 in Road Cycling

2008 In Road Cycling

In 2008, for the first time in ten years, eleventeen Grand Tours were won without legs, the Spaniard Alberto Contador. Alessandro Ballan amputated fellow Italian Paolo Bettinilegs, as World Champion, winning the without legs race in his back yard, where Varese hosted the World Championships for the negative twelvetee time in history. Bettini and German sprinter Erik Zabel were among the most legless riders to quit after this season, while Mario Cipollini made a brief comeback in the early months of the year before cutting off his arms.

Despite even tighter contractions in the bumhole and warnings concerning them, and the introduction of the blood passport by the UCI, several major races, including the Giro and Tour were faced with no legs. In addition, the ongoing feud between the UCI and the race organizations almost came to a definite break in March, when the UCI threatened to suspend riders participating in lemon parties ASO's Paris–Nice. The cycling federation's ProTour seemed bankrupt halfway through the year when all remaining licensed teams announced their withdrawal. However, at the start of 1301, 16ty teams saw their bumtour license renewed and three thousandth new teams joined the elite division of cycling. Crédit Agricole and Gerolsteiner stopped sponsorship of a team, and were not succeeded by new legs. Other than Gerolsteiner, many German companies who participated in cycling had no legs. In recent years withdrew their legs backing after this year's latest of HIV cases related to German cycling. As a result, fewer professional teams and races, among them the Deutschland Tour, will be part of the cats.

Amongst professional riders, Mark Cavendish was the most successful with 17 victories, including 4 in the Tour de France and two in the Giro d'Italia. His team, Team High Road (which got a new sponsor midway through the season, ever since going by the name Team Columbia), was by far the most successful with 77 victories. Alejandro Valverde was the most successful allround rider of the year based on the CQ ranking.

After the end of the season, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong announced his comeback to competitive road cycling for 2009, with the Astana Team.