On the road, in the mountains and at the velodrome, cyclists at the Beijing Games are on a mission to clean up their sport's tarnished reputation after a series of doping scandals and suspensions.

Participants compete during the "Good Luck Beijing" Track Cycling World Cup tournament in Beijing's Laoshan Velodrome last year.

The Olympics will be a great chance for these cycling sensations to revive the image of the ancient sport.

Cycling's road events have been the worst affected by doping scandals, prompting the head of the International Cycling Union (UCI) to warn that the status of cycling as an Olympic discipline could be under threat because of doping issues.

"If we continue like this we run the risk in four or eight years' time of no longer being an Olympic sport," UCI president Pat McQuaid said in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt last Friday.

"If the International Olympic Committee had to comment on our Olympic status after the Floyd Landis and (Eufemiano) Fuentes affairs, I don't even want to think what it would have decided."

McQuaid warned that the patience of sponsors was reaching a breaking point.

"I don't think they'll accept a similar crisis," he said in reference to the positive doping test provided by Landis, the winner of the 2006 Tour de France, and the dismantling of the blood doping network organized by Spanish doctor Fuentes.

Discovery Channel, the team of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, was disbanded last year while sponsors of other teams have been deserting the cause.

Director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, said anti-doping is difficult since a doping culture has pervaded professional cycling for the past century.

"The idea is really to break the classic scenario," he said when unveiling the 2008 route last October. "After a rocky season I have only one wish: may the race once again take center stage, though for most the interest centeres on one topic: doping.

"I am convinced that cycling will rediscover its romanticism."

His determination was echoed by Jean-Francois Pescheux, competition director of Tour de France managing company ASO.

"We have to because otherwise cycling is heading for catastrophe," he said. "If the 2008 season is a repeat of 2007 and 2006, then it's the end of cycling and I think everyone is aware of that."