On June 9 in Lyon, during the Critérium du Dauphiné, our Board of Directors held its second meeting of the year. The main topic was about ITA stepping up the fight against doping.

First of all, the Board of Directors was pleased to note that all the members of the movement fully complied with the internal regulation they committed to, on the basis of their voluntary adhesion, since the previous meeting.

MPCC President Roger Legeay also underlined that there are now more than 1000 stakeholders into MPCC (1034).

On top of all its individual memberships, MPCC also gathers:

• 36 professional men’s teams, including 9 WorldTeams
• 13 professional women’s teams, including 5 WorldTeams

Above all, this Board of Directors Meeting gave the opportunity to discuss the recent proposals submitted by ITA. The International Testing Agency is an independant foundation (subjected to the Swiss law) that has been mandated by the UCI to lead cycling’s fight against doping, back in January 2021.

At the end of last year, ITA adhered to MPCC. Thus, the two entities took the opportunity to affirm their mutual support, driven by the shared willingness to follow up fight against doping’s developments.

Both ITA and MPCC agree that testing is not the only focus to have to protect clean athletes. Efforts also have to be made through investigations and intelligence sharing. Following this goal, ITA made recommandations that could potentially be implemented in 2023:

• Allocating structural, operational and technological reinforcements to Intelligence and Investigation unity
• Increasing the use of information provided by confidential sources, through the REVEAL platform
• Making better use of data analysis: whereabouts, biological passports, analytics, athletes’ performances, medication use
• Performing a greater number of out-of-competition tests and sample analysis, with WADA’s accredited laboratories
• Focusing efforts on the elite level
• Increasing the amount of samples conserved on a long-time period, to make reanalysis possible
• Increasing the amount of sample reanalysis, making the most of the extended conservation period

ITA needs greater financial resources than what is currently available to achieve the implementation of this project. Even if professional cycling teams have already been making important financial contributions to the fight against doping, the total amount has barely evolved in the 10 last years.

This is the reason why MPCC wants to raise awareness among all professional cycling teams in order to offer full support to this ambitious project. The goal is to provide an effective response to the general suspicion cycling suffers from, allowing the sport to improve its credibility.