The gap is decreasing, cycling presents the fastest growth
MPCC keep regular accounts of the number of positive tests by sports, which highlights the significant number of cases in the two most affected sports: baseball and athletics. But what about in terms of volume of tests led by the different federations ? Three sports rise to over 20,000 tests per year if we refer to the annual report released by the AMA in July: cycling is one of them, with football and athletics. For comparison, there are 1,300 professional cyclists in the world, that is to say 600 less than the only number of participants to the only Athletics World Championships. And football lists 113,000 professional players on five continents…
Among all sports considered by the World Anti-Doping Agency, cycling is also the one that shows the most eloquent increase in number of controls carried out. 1628 more between 2012 and 2013, when football is stable (-6) and athletics decline sharply (-2884). Cycling has never been so high with 22,252 controls, now pointing to 5750 units of football, when in 2008, biggest year of football with 33,445 controls, the difference was 14,009!
Leader in blood tests, a precursor of Adams and of the biological passport
It’s not only quantitatively that cycling sets an example: regarding the number of blood tests done in 2013, it peaks at 1224, against 831 for athletics and 667 for football. Cycling is also a leader in the detection of EPO, with 7322 controls against 5227 for athletics and 2379 for football. Of all the “heavy” substances that are EPO, testosterone, growth hormone and homologous blood transfusion, cycling is never further than second. Football forsakes growth hormone (8th), and athletics transfusion (5th).
A quantitative and qualitative anti-doping campaign which shows that cycling does not leave anything to chance, not to mention his pioneering role in the development of geolocation (adopted from its inception in 2005) and the biological passport (also adopted from its inception in 2008 ), while football, for example, has still not decided to integrating Adams to its plan.
