on june 15, 2008 columbia sportswear announced a three year sponsorship of the team beginning on july 5, the start of the tour de france. the team's new name is "team columbia". the sponsorship includes both the men's and women's teams. the announcement of this new deal with columbia coincided with a highly successful tour, in which the team won 5 individual stages (four of which went to british sprinter mark cavendish) as well as team leader kim kirchen leading the general classification in the tour de france for four days in addition to leading the points classification in the tour de france.