Riis ends tenure as WorldTour team owner as Danish doping investigation looms

Bjarne Riis has held court at many memorable press conferences during his time in cycling but on Monday afternoon in London he announced the end of his ownership of Riis Cycling and with that the end of the Saxo Bank team in its current form. The Danish press, who were on hand, referred to the squad as his life's work but within a matter of minutes the canvas had been wiped clean and Riis had ushered on stage one Oleg Tinkov. The team name changed to Tinkoff-Saxo and Riis relinquished control for a reported 6 million Euros as Tinkov switched from out-of-favour collaborator to team boss.

Daniel Benson

Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.