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Leading ProTour cycling teams have expelled Discovery Channel and Manolo Saiz's Active Bay company from their organisation for failing to stick to an ethical code.
Spanish newspapers said Discovery Channel, Lance Armstrong's former employers, were thrown out of the Association of ProTour teams for breaking an agreement not to sign riders implicated in Spain's doping investigation Operation Puerto by recruiting Ivan Basso.
The Italian, formerly the team leader with the Danish CSC team, was one of nine riders withdrawn from this year's Tour de France because of links with the probe.
