Liberty Seguros is no more

The company cited the detention of the Liberty Seguros team's sporting director Manolo Saiz in Spain as the reason for its decision.

"As sponsors, Liberty Seguros have always wanted to promote a culture of fair play and zero tolerance with respect to doping," read a statement on Thursday.

"In November 2005 after the suspension of a rider (Roberto Heras) for doping we made our contract one of the most rigorous with regard to this subject.

"The implications and consequences of the detention of Manolo Saiz are highly worrying; they damage our name and the name of cycling.

"We have cancelled our agreement with the owners of the team (Active Bay) and will respect outstanding financial obligations." Spanish television reported the contract was worth 8 million euros.

Saiz was detained this week with doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who has collaborated with a number of cycling teams in recent years, a former mountain bike competitor Jose Alberto Leon, and the head of a clinical analysis laboratory, Jose Luis Merino.

The fifth person is an assistant director of the Comunidad Valenciana cycling team, Ignacio Labarta. On Thursday there were calls from within the Valencia regional parliament to withdraw their sponsorship of that team.

Heras was banned for two years after testing positive for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) on his way to a record fourth victory in the Tour of Spain.

Heras, a former team-mate of seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in the U.S. Postal team, protested his innocence, arguing first that there must have been a laboratory mix-up and then that the testing process for EPO was flawed.

Liberty are currently competing in the Giro d'Italia and one of their leading riders Alexandre Vinokourov is tipped to be a key challenger in this year's Tour de France.