The Swiss cycling team Phonak said Monday that its very survival was at stake following an initial decision by the UCI to leave it out of the 2005 ProTour.

Phonak, which has had three top riders fail doping tests this year, vowed to fight for its place on the final list at a hearing with the UCI's licensing commission on November 22.

"The participation in the ProTour is of existential significance to the team's future and vitally important to Swiss cycling in general," the team said in a statement.

"Participation in the most important races has to be guaranteed and is the principal sponsor's condition for providing funding. The team management greatly regrets the provisional rejection," the statement noted. Phonak was the only one of the 20 teams on the shortlist for ProTour to have been left out when the UCI announced its provisional list on Saturday. The Zürich-based team's troubles started when former world champion Oscar Camenzind tested positive in August.

Then team leader and Olympic time trial gold medalist Tyler Hamilton failed a test for an illicit blood transfusion at the Vuelta a España in September. Hamilton also had a positive sample at the Athens Olympics, but lab staff inadvertently froze the American’s B sample, resulting in a dismissal of the Olympic case. Hamilton still faces a two-year suspension in the Vuelta case.

The team was hit by another scandal after it was learned late last month that Vuelta runner-up Santiago Perez also tested positive for the same type of homologous transfusion.

Phonak has suspended both riders, but is also supporting a challenge to the test, even setting up its own international scientific panel to examine the validity of the testing method.

The "blood doping" test has been approved by international sports governing bodies including the International Olympic Commission (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The Swiss team said it "hopes to clarify the issues earmarked by the UCI and is confident that it will then be admitted to the ProTour". Phonak acknowledged that apart from the doping issue it would also need to review some of the contracts of its riders.

The UCI is due to issue its final list of ProTour-eligible teams on Thursday, December 2.