The riders of the T-Mobile team have welcomed the additional steps required by their sponsor, which do not extend to the women's team. The biggest change is giving up part of their salaries, which will be funneled towards the fight against doping. Team spokesperson Stefan Wagner told Cyclingnews that the riders were already debating during the Tour, right after the Patrik Sinkewitz case became known, to see what needs to be done.
Some thought it would be the end of the team. "I called Andreas Klier and told him while he was in a training camp and he thought that was it," Wagner elaborated.
By adding more money to the general doping tests this will be helpful to catch anyone, even if some teams are doing less than their share in the fight against doping. Wagner said that it wasn't so much an issue of UCI vs. AIGCP vs. WADA as much as for the teams and riders going at it and cleaning up. As Discovery Channel had shown, more scandals mean less chances to attract new sponsors.
Christian Frommert, T-Mobile's manager of sponsoring communication, told Cyclingnews that while any sport needs to seriously tackle the doping problem, cycling "has lost most, if not all, credibility, and has to be a role model in the fight against doping."
Frommert also indicated that the stock holders and employee's (those that are not necessarily sports fans) reactions to the recent doping cases is a mirror of the public debate. "Agreement, refusal, skepticism, criticism, praise. Sport is a part of society and mirrors its problems."
