Liberty Seguros Continental
| UCI code | LSE |
|---|---|
| Registered | Portugal |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Disbanded | 2009 |
| Discipline | Road |
| Status | Continental |
| Team manager(s) | Américo Silva |
| 1958-1960 1977-1978 1996-1997 1998-1999 2000-2002 2003-2004 2005-2006 2007-2009 |
Águias de Alpiarça Águias/Clok LA Aluminios-AC Malveira LA Aluminios-Pecol-Águias de Alpiarça LA Aluminios-Pecol-Calbrita LA Aluminios-Pecol-Bombarral LA Aluminios-Liberty Seguros Liberty Seguros |
The Liberty Seguros Continental professional cycling team was a Portuguese team based in Bombarral. It was one of the European teams in UCI Continental Tour, but it was dismantled at the end of 2009 due to a doping scandal.
Although there was a cycling team competing at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, the professional cycling team was founded for the 1996 season with the sponsorship of Portuguese aluminium company, LA Pecol. The group became one of the most important Portuguese squads, developing a great rivalry with Maia, another great Portuguese team.
The team participated in the 2000 Vuelta a España and Andrei Zinchenko won the 14th stage, which ended in Lagos de Covadonga. The victory of the Russian, (winner of three stages in 1998), was the first victory of a Portuguese team in the history of the Vuelta. In 2001 the team was not invited to participate in the Vuelta a España, so it pretty much just competed in the Portuguese calendar. The great rival of the LA-Pecol-Bombarral the Milaneza-Maia, raced in the Vuelta (something that had not happened in the previous year). After the 2004 season, the sponsor Pecol left the team, ending the designation LA-Pecol.
With a new organization of cycling teams since 2005, the team was designated as UCI Continental category (below categories ProTour and UCI Professional Continental, the first and second highest categories, respectively). Also that season the team received a new sponsor, the multinational Liberty Seguros, as part of the agreement, cyclists Nuno Ribeiro and Sérgio Paulinho moved to the Spanish team Liberty Seguros-Würth, a ProTour cycling team run by Manolo Saiz.
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