Ignacio Ayuso, president of Vuelta a España organiser Unipublic, has revealed to Spanish newspaper AS that an earlier main sponsorship deal this year was cancelled after Floyd Landis tested positive for a too high testosterone ratio in his blood. Meanwhile, the race found a new main sponsor, but "Expo Zaragoza 2008" stepped in on emergency just three days prior to the event.
"In July, we had it all signed," he said. "We had this main sponsor, a big business, as well as Ford coming on board and the continuous backing of Ifema and From. But the Landis case made the sponsor doubtful and he preferred to back out." Whilst Ayuso, who did not want to reveal the identity of the company ("We are confident that this possible sponsor, like others who had doubts, might be able to be signed in the future"), added that the Vuelta organiser agreed to drop the already-signed deal after the doping accusations against the Tour de France winner were made public. "We had an agreement for one year and the possibility of renewal for the next. But we understood the position [of the sponsor] and released them from their engagement."
