Professional cycling team, actually owned and managed by Tailwind Sports, which operated under that name from 1997 to 2004 under a sponsorship deal which followed on from the Motorola and 7-Eleven teams which were the USA's main contribution to world-class cycling in the 1980s and 1990s; they were at the time the only American team to have had a consistent presence in the major races in Europe, other than the short-lived Mercury team in 2001. The team's prominence was largely down to Lance Armstrong's run of wins in the Tour de France, although in 2001 George Hincapie's riding in the spring classics led to more effort being put in to other parts of the calendar; the other highlight of the season was the solid performances in the Vuelta a España and the World Championships by Levi Leipheimer, who has since left the team. The team manager, or directeur sportif as they say in American (well, on their website, http://www.uspsprocycling.com, anyway) was the canny tactician Johan Bruyneel of Belgium, who took over the reins from Jim Ochowicz in 1999.
Team lineup for 2002
The TLA used by the UCI for the team was USP.
The USPS ceased sponsoring the team at the end of the 2004 season and were replaced as main sponsors by Discovery Channel.