Road Bike Racing - Pro team geneology

Most pro cycling teams have been around longer than their names, which change with each major sponsorship change, e.g. US team 7-11 became Motorola which became USPS. That one's easy, since there's only one US div 1 pro team, it's harder to track the European squads. Like Festina... did they just dissolve, or become Credit Agricole? Domo Farm Frites? Someone else?

Anyhow, can anybody point me to a reference?

TIA!

This is a great team reference page http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/2002/teams2002/team2002.shtml

And if you want to do the work, you can sometimes answer your question (see Acqua & Sapone, for example, in TT1).

Cheers...Gary

Teams often fold and dissolve. This is what happened to Festina when the title sponsor withdrew at the end of 2001. This doesn't always happen, of course; title sponsors are often replaced by new sponsors. This is what happened in Rabobank's long and colourful history. In 1993, the Buckler team became Team Wordperfect, which became Team Novell in 1995, before Rabobank signed on as the title sponsor in 1996.

In the case of Aqua & Sapone- Cantina-Tollo, the title sponsor simply switched witht he secondary sponsor; last year, the team was Cantina-Tollo-Aqua & Sapone.

Often, teams and parts of teams will merge and split. TVM became Farm Frites in 1999, which merged with a new team made up of the Belgian contingent of Mapei and became Domo-Farm Frites.

Sometimes, sponsors will start with one team and go off and sponsor another team. When MG-Bianchi-GB became Mapei-GB, MG moved its sponsorship to another team called MG-Technogym.

Most often, sponsorship just changes hands...

Team Z [1990] --> Gan [1993] --> Credit Agricole [1998]

Renault-Gitane --> Renault-Elf --> La Vie Claire --> Toshiba-Look --> [I'm not sure, but I'd be surprised if this team wasn't still around, in some form].

There is, in fact, no organizational continuity between Motorola and USPS. When Motorola [the original 7-11 squad] folded 1996, that was it. The team members were dispersed, most going to Cofidis, in fact, for one-year contracts. When TAilwind Sports [a SF-based sports promotion company] started a new team in 1997 and signed on USPS as title sponsor, it managed to hire back the core of the Motorola Squad after their contracts with other teams expired.

Thanks! I guess when a team comes under a shadow such as Festina did, they're rightfully shunned by sponsors, and really have on recourse.

Originally posted by velocipedio
There is, in fact, no organizational continuity between Motorola and USPS
I wondered about this... I knew Eddy B. wasn't part of USPS, but assumed they had built on his previous efforts.

Originally posted by gmason
This is a great team reference page http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/2002/teams2002/team2002.shtml
Excellent! Much better, and more up to date than the VeloNews team page.