Professional cycling suffered a Black Thursday in Germany when organizers announced the scrapping of next year’s Tour of Germany the same day broadcasters pulled the plug on covering next year’s Tour de France.
German media giants ARD, the country’s No. 1 broadcasters, and fellow national television channel ZDF announced on Thursday they would not cover the Tour de France again because of recent cases of failed drugs testing.
And just hours later, the German Cycling Federation (BDR), in a statement with the organizers, announced the 2009 Deutschland Tour would not take place for the same reason.
“We regret taking this decision, but it had to be done,” said Tour of Germany organizer Kai Rapp.
The development came after the organizers met with their financers and the decision was taken to cancel the national event indefinitely.
The scrapping of the German Tour and the decision by both ARD and ZDF comes less than 24 hours after Austria’s Bernhard Kohl, who finished third overall in last year’s Tour de France, admitted to using CERA, the new generation of banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin).
Kohl was the fourth rider on this year’s Tour after Italian duo Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli and Gerolsteiner teammate Stefan Schumacher to have been caught out by the new tests for CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator).
“The sporting value of the Tour de France has been reduced by the accumulation of failed drugs tests,” said ARD chairman Fritz Raff after the decision was made following a meeting in Cologne. “Therefore, its broadcast value has sunk deeply.”
In Paris, the ASO (Amaury Sport Organization), which organizes the Tour de France, said it was stunned by ARD’s decision to drop the event from its schedules claiming it could “sadly encourage those fighting against doping to ease up in order to guarantee a broadcast.”
“ARD asks that we fight doping but then takes offence when doped riders are found. We must look and find nothing,” it said.
ARD pulled the plug on broadcasting last year’s Tour de France in the middle of the competition after German rider Patrick Sinkewitz failed a drugs test for testosterone.
The broadcasters had been set to renegotiate their contract with Tour organizers to screen next year’s race, but Thursday’s announcement means there are now no plans to screen the world’s premier cycling event in Germany in the near future.
The consortium covers a broad range of media including television, radio and web sites and German television channel ZDF soon followed ARD’s example.
“ZDF will also not broadcast the Tour without ARD,” said ZDF’s chief spokesman Nikolaus Brender.
Both ARD and ZDF will need to negotiate with the European Broadcast Union about the consequences of their actions as both are members of the organziation which had a contract with Tour de France organizers to broadcast the race until 2011. The new contract was agreed in July.
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