Over the 12 last Grand Tours, the MPCC identified all of the riders that had previously been suspended for using banned products among the 198 riders at the start. It has now been more than 2 years that no rider from a MPCC team has been identified as one of those riders.
One of the most important articles from MPCC’s internal regulation – that all the members commit to respect on a voluntary basis – is article 4:
MPCC teams agree not to enter riders, even in the case of a contract extension, who are convicted of (or deemed involved in) any anti-doping violation under Articles 2.1 to 2.8 of the World Anti-Doping Code, who were given a sanction of more than 6 months by the international court or national body (excluding penalties for three breaches of the ADAMS geolocation anti-doping administration and management system), within 2 years after the suspension or subject to a sanction for :
1. Abnormalities noted on the biological passport (or a violation of the biological passport regulations).
2. Damage to the image and credibility of cycling as previously defined.
(…) It is expressly agreed and accepted by the team members that in the event the rider is under contract, it will have to be terminated. The non-recruitment clause as provided in the part IV must be extensively implemented: the incriminated rider will no longer be part of the team during the 2-year period.
During the 2014 Giro d’Italia, 5 MPCC teams had lined up 6 riders that had previously faced doping sanctions. At that time, it wasn’t forbidden by the internal regulation as the doping events had occurred before the teams’ first MPCC commitment.
The movement’s goal is to avoid this type of recruitment. Grand Tour after Grand Tour, year after year, we noticed that the MPCC teams progressively totally stopped having previously doped riders in their rosters for the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta – and, in the end, in their global rosters.
Member teams not only commit to respect a rule: they also believe in that rule. The MPCC President, Roger Legeay, explains that “a team could sign a rider 2 years and 1 day after the end of his suspension and it wouldn’t be violating our rules. However, no team ever did that, their recruitment policies are flawless.” As a consequence, the members have been demonstrating a zero tolerance policy for 5 years now. The MPCC manages to do what the IOC is trying to realize for Olympic Games participations.
At the opposite, some teams that aren’t part of the MPCC keep having in their rosters riders who have faced doping suspensions in their career. Between 2014 and 2016, those riders were more and more every year, and this number only started decreasing this year. We still have to keep in mind that just before the start of each one of this year’s 3 Grand Tours, positive controls have been announced. All of the riders involved were part of teams that weren’t MPCC members. The fact that no MPCC team have been concerned by those events shows that MPCC teams are very careful about the identities of the riders they sign.
Grand Tours Infography since 2014 :
