Sinkewitz has failed a dope test and German TV have pulled the plug
 

Sinkewitz has tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone on 8th June. So much for T-Mobile's testing regime, which was supposed to spot anomalies missed by the UCI. He has been suspended and will be sacked if the B sample also tests positive. German TV have stopped covering the Tour. Live news here: http://live.cyclingnews.com/?id=latest

How will the sport keep any big sponsors now?

This is nuts. The blows to T-Mobile just keep coming.

Huh?

Just go to the cyclingnews link:

13:21 CEST
Sinkewitz and teammates were shocked and the injured rider claimed he didn't dope. Sounds familiar. The test was taken before the Tour. It remains to be seen if German television channels will come through with their promise to stop broadcasting the Tour if another doping case surfaces. We will inform you in about an hour on this.

13:31 CEST
We just received the news that the German public channels ARD and ZDF have indeed decided to pull the plug until the doping case of Sinkewitz is further investigated. The channels have said they hope that their action will send a strong signal to all of those involved in cycling.

And when was the last time the B sample differed from the A? Everyone knows Sinkewitz is finished.

can't understand pulling the tour coverage though, seems a little drastic
it always looks to me like the german networks wanted an excuse not to show the race
mind you it'll kill pro cycling in germany if they dont show pro cycling.
its why pro cycling in uk is mainly amatuer cos the networks wont show pro cycling

+1

george

eurostar: where is your train avatar?

Do we really want to bring up the answer the that question?

The rationale for German TV's response is not made clear in any of the articles I've seen in English (yeah, I'm pretty much a monoglot). I think all they'll do is piss people off, and perhaps encourage some more of the ridiculous polititians there to engage in knee-jerk reactions - similar to the Stuttgart councilwoman who wants to ban Eric Zabel from this year's World Championships there.

Great. So in essence, German TV punishes Gerolsteiner for a T-Mobile rider testing positive.

the strong signal is: watch cycling on the internet, TV sucks anyway.

that's one thing that is good about us liberal wacko americans.... we don't care about doping.....has baseball or football suffered? no!... if the europeans stop showing cycling and it "dies" over there... all the riders will come to the usa and we'll end up benefiting... sponsors don't like bad publicity, but they're still raking in the $$ and isn't $$ what it's really all about?.. or am i way off here??

Good thing German TV doesn't cover politics, soccer or pop music, with all the drugs and corruption.:rolleyes:

velonews are now reporting that the German government wants to cancel the world championships in Stuttgart later this year.

http://velonews.com/news/fea/12590.0.html

Massive overreaction. This is the German government playing politics. Who are the German government to punish all the innocent riders from all over the world, who just want their crack at the world title? They also want to ban anyone who's ever tested positive or admitted to using doping products in the past. What happened to serving your punishment and then being allowed to make amends?

This stinks of hypocrisy, given the role played by the former East Germany in establishing doping in elite sport in the 70's and 80's.

Does this mean that the German government is going to ban all sports? :rolleyes:

What happens if somehow Kloden wins?, I think a lot of German people would be pretty pissed at their government run television stations.

Yep, doesn't make much sense to me either. Let's punish the German fans because of Sinkewitz:rolleyes:

Marion Jones.

well, those who are still interested in watching le tour will just switch to eurosport. every household with cable tv, a satellite dish or a dvb-t antenna (that's pretty much everyone) can still watch it.

ard and zdf (not government-run, but public tv channels btw.) warned gerolsteiner and t-mobile that they'd stop broadcasting if one of the german pro-team riders would be tested positive.
sinkewitz already missed a few tests last year. t-mobile knew about that since may and still nominated him for this year's tdf-sqad.