One of cycling’s most successful teams is to disband, underlining the struggle facing the sport after last month’s Tour de France suffered a second year of doping scandals.

Tailwind Sports, the group that helped the US’s Lance Armstrong to a record seven Tour victories, has given up efforts to find a replacement for the US-based Discovery Channel. The team, which was asking for $15m (€11m, £7m) a year, had been seeking a backer since February.