The first event of the 2008 UCI World mountain bike championships was held this week and it was an event you may not have heard of: The team relay. France upset Switzerland to take first while the Canadian team took sixth. Sadly the US team was only able to manage 8th place – not a great showing for the inventors of the sport 😉
In other news, Gamin announced this week that it will be the title sponsor of Team Slipstream, the US pro cycling team competing in the Tour de France this year. The official team name will be Garmin-Chipotle which is pretty rad since I’m a fan of both GPS and huge tasty burritos. Columbia sportswear also announced its sponsorship of Team High Road, another American team, earlier this week.
I read an article in Outside magazine recently about Team Slipstream and their radical approach to clean racing which basically involves extreme drug testing that goes above and beyond the normal requirements. The article mentions that other teams are following Slipstream’s approach (including Team High Road) and this seems to be encouraging more sponsors to get involved. Maybe some of this sponsorship money will spill over into mountain biking some day…
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