In a pre-Olympic period, you may be surprised to hear that the number of disciplinary procedures (doping or corruption) is decreasing, all sports put together. When you compare first quarter figures to previous years, the decrease has always been somewhere between 30% and 50%. Track & Field remains the sport with the highest number of cases by a large margin, even if the total appears three times lower than in the same date last year.
Most probably carrying out antidoping tests (in competition and out of competition) is hampered by the cancellation of a lot of sporting events – a pandemic related situation, just like in 2020. Accurate reports on the application of tests are still to be unveiled by international federations and anti-doping agencies in order to confirm this conclusion.
Cycling: 4 procedures
Based on comparisons with previous years, figures in early 2021 place cycling in a lower range. Only 4 procedures have been made public, all related to 4 different disciplines. For two of them, a sanction has been pronounced:
– A Czech cyclocross national champion suspended for 4 years
– A track elite rider suspended for 6 months
Two other procedures remain ongoing:
– An Italian professional road rider, provisionally suspended due to alleged use of EPO
– An Italian MTB elite rider who also is provisionally suspended
It is worth mentioning that no doping case or alleged doping case are relative to a masculine or feminine WorldTeam.
The MPCC is pleased that none of its members are concerned by any of these 4 cases.
