Deutsche Telekom is ending its sponsorship of professional cycling immediately to distance its brand from the doping scandals that have blighted the sport, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically," said Hamid Akhavan, Chief Executive of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit.

The company, which has been sponsoring cycling since 1991, said it had negotiated a deal to end its contract with Team T-Mobile that had been due to run until 2010. It said both parties had agreed to keep the terms confidential.

The team's sporting chief, Bob Stapleton, said the team would continue in elite cycling under the name "Team High Road".

"T-Mobile's decision to end its involvement in professional cycling is a challenge to the sport and our team," Stapleton told Reuters.

"We will review and adapt our operations and continue to advance our leadership position in athletic success and commitment to clean and fair sport that began during our work with T-Mobile."

Stapleton had instituted a tougher stance against doping at the end of 2006, putting in place new management, riders, procedures, doctors and what it called "a firm anti-doping policy and testing programme".

The restructuring came at the end of a scandal-filled year, which included the dismissal of former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich before the 2006 race.

Deutsche Telekom said on Tuesday it had ended sponsorship of both the men's and women's teams.

"We have worked very hard with the current team management to promote a clean cycling sport but we reached the decision to continue our efforts to rid all sports of doping by applying our resources in other directions," Akhavan said.

"Deutsche Telekom AG wants to make it clear that this action is not based on any disagreement with or misconduct by team management," he added.

T-Mobile has asked prosecutors for copies of reports on ex-team member Patrik Sinkewitz, who was fired in July after testing positive for testosterone, after he gave details of his history of doping use to a magazine.

Sinkewitz has been giving evidence to the German Cycling Federation and hopes to return to cycling.

Team T-Mobile had said in August that Deutsche Telekom would continue its involvement in cycling to support it in the fight to create a clean sport, and would honour the contract with the T-Mobile team until it ended in 2010.

Reuters