The after-shocks from the so-called “Operación Puerto” that rocked Spanish cycling in the wake of the arrests of Liberty Seguros team manager Manolo Saiz and sports doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and three others are already rippling through cycling.

Liberty Seguros announced Thursday it’s immediately ending its multi-million-dollar sponsorship with the ProTour team while Spanish authorities are reporting that as many as 200 riders and athletes could be implicated in a widespread doping network.

“The implications of Manolo Saiz´s detention are highly alarming: they damage our name and cycling’s name,” a company statement read Thursday. “We have cancelled our agreement with the owners of the team (Active Bay) and will respect outstanding financial obligations.”

The Boston-based insurance giant entered cycling with a flourish in 2004 and stood steadfastly alongside the team despite the EPO doping scandal of team captain Roberto Heras in last year’s Vuelta a España. The company insisted on a zero-tolerance policy to continue with its sponsorship deal estimated to be worth $8.5 million per year, about 80 percent of the team's total budget.

News that Saiz was caught red-handed with a refrigerated bag containing frozen blood and €60,000 in cash proved too much for the American sponsor.

“As sponsors, we have always wanted to promote a culture of fair play and zero-tolerance with respect to doping,” the statement read. “In November 2005 after the suspension of a rider (Roberto Heras) for doping we made our contract one of the most rigorous with regard to this subject.”

The immediate implications of the sponsorship withdrawal are already being felt. Racing at the Giro d’Italia, the team vowed to push through the race.

Team sport director Marino Lejarreta told Italian TV the news was “bad for our team but we will try to finish the Giro” while Giampaolo Caruso, 14th overall, said Saiz’ arrest was a shock and that “Saiz is like a father to me.”

The fallout could huge impact on riders, including Tour de France favorite Alexandre Vinokourov. L’Equipe reported that the Kazakh rider, third overall in the 2003 Tour, said that he would race the Tour one way or another, with Liberty Seguros or another team.

The center of scandal is a three-month investigation by Spain’s anti-doping brigade which includes wire taps and video surveillance of Fuentes and other associates. Others detained included Comunitat Valenciana assistant directeur sportif Ignacio Labarta, José Luis Merino, director of a Madrid blood transfusion center, and former pro mountain biker Alberto Leon.

Authorities raided four apartments Tuesday and claim to have found 200 packages of blood as well as thousands of doses of human-growth hormones, EPO and anabolic steroids that included codes to indicate which rider should receive the injections.

El Pais reported Thursday that as many as 200 riders could be implicated. One of them, T-Mobile's Jan Ullrich, has denied reports on Spain's Cadena SER radio that he has worked with fuentes

“Cycling is not dirty,” Ullrich said in an interview with the station earlier this week. “There are some doping cases because cycling is hard. It’s too bad.”

Spanish authorities said the investigations will be exhaustive and on-going until the full scope of network is revealed.

It already has the whiff of what could be the worst doping scandal in cycling since the Festina Affaire in 1998.

The surprise announcement marks the first time a major sponsor has pulled out of a sponsorship mid-season due to a doping scandal.

“Cycling has been very good to us and it wasn’t all bad, but we couldn’t afford to let this continue,” said Fabio Selvig, sponsor contact for Liberty Seguros in Spain. “We are an insurance company and people have to trust us.”

Selvig insisted that the sponsor stuck by Saiz after previous hints of doping within the team. Last year, riders were not allowed to start races at the Giro d’Italia and the Dauphiné Libéré because of high hematocrit counts. The sponsor rode through the Roberto Heras EPO scandal, but the latest scandal was just too much, Selvig said.

Selvig said the contract outlining the sponsorship deal last year was revised in light of the Heras scandal. One of the main tenets was the inclusion of an independent and neutral medical expert would conduct anti-doping controls on riders throughout the season.

“We stayed with the team after the Heras case because we didn’t think that 30 or 40 people should pay for error of one person,” Selvig said. “We also made it very clear that we would not tolerate the hint of doping.”

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