One of the best teams in the history of mountain bike racing will not be returning for 2003. After nine years together, automaker Volvo and bikemaker Cannondale have announced the end of the Volvo-Cannondale racing team.

According to Cannondale vice president of marketing Scott Montgomery, Volvo was the driving force behind the demise of the team.

"I think Volvo has become a part of a large entity with lots of different directional requests," said Montgomery of the car company, which was bought by the Ford Motor Corporation in January of 1999. "There seems to be a contingent there that's really excited about yacht racing. It seems like that's the direction they're going."

Indeed, Volvo became the title sponsor of what was formerly known as the Whitbread Round the World Race in 2000, renaming it the Volvo Ocean Race.

But while the car company looks to be done with the sport, Montgomery emphasized that the end of the Volvo-Cannondale era was not the end of his company’s sponsorship of mountain-bike racing.

"We’re committed to supporting the sport," said Montgomery. "We’ll definitely be back next year with the SoBe-Cannondale team, and we’re already looking at several other opportunities."

As for the Volvo-Cannondale racers, which included Anne-Caroline Chausson, Christoph Sauser, Cédric Gracia, Kashi Leuchs and American mountain biking icon Tinker Juarez, Montgomery said he "definitely expected to see some of them on Cannondale bikes next year."

One strong possibility would see one or two of the athletes putting together solo programs with Cannondale as their principal sponsor. Both Brian Lopes and Steve Peat have done that this year with other bikemakers.

"I think that's a strong possibility," Montgomery said. "There is still some possibility that someone will walk up and say we want to sponsor a team, but I think it's more likely that we'll end up doing something much smaller. Big teams are not where the sport is anymore. Smaller programs have more validity."

That almost certainly means the end of the involvement of Team Sports Inc., which ran the team's day to day functions.

"Volvo really drove the idea of having a third party marketing company involved with the team," Montgomery said. "The wanted to make sure that their interests were being looked after."

A list of Volvo-Cannondale's current and past rosters reads like a "Who’s Who" of the sport. Beside Chausson, Sauser, Juarez and Gracia, riders such as Alison Sydor, Cadel Evans, Missy Giove, Myles Rockwell and Brian Lopes were all members of the team at one time or another. The team was also a multiple winner of the VeloNews International Mountain Bike Team of the Year award, including last year.