| Team Cyclingnews.com–Down Under | |
| Registered: | United Kingdom |
| Disbanded: | 2009 |
| Discipline: | Road |
| Status: | UCI Continental |
| Generalmanager: | Nick Collins |
| Teammanager: | Rudi Dubois |
| Season: | 2001–2003 2004 2005 2006–2007 2008 |
| Oldname: | Team Down Under Team cyclingnews.com-Down Under Team Cyclingnews.com Fondriest DFL-Cyclingnews–Litespeed Pedaltech-Cyclingnews |
Team DFL–Cyclingnews–Litespeed was a British professional cycling team that rode UCI Continental Circuits races.
The team leader for 2007 was Belgian Nico Mattan and the squad included 2006 British champion Hamish Haynes, reigning Finnish National Time Trial champion Matti Helminen and English rider Daniel Lloyd. Eric Vanderaerden was a directeur sportif.[1]
In what was a disappointing season, Lloyd scored the team's best general classification result with his second-place overall finish at the Tour of Qinghai Lake. Cameron Jennings won a stage of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, Helminen retained the Finnish National Time Trial Championship and Jeremy Vennell was victorious on stages five and six of the Powernet Tour of Southland to give DFL four professional victories for the season.[2]
Mattan in particular had an underwhelming season, his only ranking points of the year coming via a 78th place finish at Gent–Wevelgem. The former Gent–Wevelgem and two-time Paris-Nice stage winner finished outside the top 2000 in the professional rider rankings and would retire at the end of the season.[3]
Daniel Lloyd was the highest rated member of the squad in 2007, finishing a creditable 329th in the end of season PCS rankings.[4]
In 2008 it wanted to become a professional continental team under the name Pedaltech-Cyclingnews and signed Steffen Wesemann[5] and Bas Giling.[6] It also had an agreement with Marc Lotz but Pedaltech signed two British professionals instead.[7] Top performers Lloyd and Helminen left the team, joining and Palmans–Cras respectively for 2008.
The UCI did not give the team the professional continental licence.[8] Potential sponsors pulled out, including bike supplier Museeuw Bicycles[9] and Cyclingnews.com, after which the team was to be known as Pedaltech Pro Cycling Team. Then the team manager, who was its owner, faked having cancer and could not run the team.[10] It collapsed.[11] [12]