History
The team was founded under the name Liquigas in 1999, and was long in the second division team, slowly making a name of itself. From 2005 the team was combined with Team Bianchi for the Pro Tour.
In 2007, Cannondale replaced Bianchi as the bicycle sponsor. This marked Cannondale's return to the ProTour after discontinuing sponsorship of the Lampre-Caffita team at the end of the 2005 season.
On 11 July 2008 the news broke from the French sports paper L'Equipe that Spanish rider Manuel Beltrán had tested positive for EPO after the first stage of the tour. It was blood abnormalities before the start of the tour that led France's Anti-Doping Agency to target the rider. According to AP a spokesperson for Liquigas confirmed the same day that Beltrán had been thrown off the tour. It was also reported that the police had picked Beltrán up from his hotel where he had been staying with the rest of the Liquigas team, as well as searching the rest of the hotel for more doping. It was later confirmed that his B-sample also tested positive.
From the 2009 Giro d'Italia until the 2012 Tour de France, the team finished every Grand Tour with all nine riders, a total of 11 such events in succession.
For the 2013 season Liquigas-Cannondale will become Cannondale Pro Cycling as Cannondale take over as the title sponsor in partnership with Brixia Sports.
Read more about this topic: Liquigas-Cannondale
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)