New members, cortisol level controls, upcoming meeting with WADA, Tour and Giro wildcards… All of these topics have been discussed during our last Board meeting.

Gathered in Roissy on Wednesday the 20th of February, the MPCC board stated on its new members. Two pro teams joined the MPCC: Riwal-Readynez (Pro Continental, Denmark) and Groupama FDJ (Continental, France). During the ‘off-season’, 77 pro athletes – men and women – as well as more than 200 teams’ staff members joined the MPCC.

The MPCC can now rely on 643 members, more than half of them (338) being active riders. As a reminder, any team’s staff members can join the MPCC, whether their team is part of the MPCC or not. To do so, they only need to fill up the appropriate form:

Riders registration – Staff registration

The MPCC acknowledged that, starting on the 1st of March 2019, Tramadol use during races will now be forbidden by UCI rules, and blood tests will be conducted to detect this substance. As we are still waiting for similar rules regarding corticoids, the MPCC will keep doing cortisol level tests amongst member teams in 2019. On a voluntary basis, these teams commit not to line up – on any race – any rider going through corticoids treatment.

The board also selected the representants that will head to Lausanne on the 12th of March to meet WADA’s officials, as we positively answered to WADA President Craig Reedie’s invit

The President of the MPCC Roger Legeay will be accompanied by 4 members of the movement: the vice-President of the MPCC Iwan Spekenbrink, the Secretary Philippe Senmartin, the Rally-UHC Cycling team’s physician Prentice Steffen and the French federation’s Legal director Philippe Lavergne.

To conclude, as we are still waiting for the attribution of the last Tour de France wild cards, the MPCC is very satisfied with the organizers’ decision to assign the first two wild cards to MPCC members: Cofidis (France) and Wanty Groupe Gobert (Belgium). The MPCC is also delighted that the Giro d’Italia granted all of the 4 available wild cards to MPCC members: Androni – Giocatolli – Sidermec (Italy), Bardiani – CSF (Italy), Israel Cycling Academy (Israel) et Nippo – Fini Fantini – Faizane (Italy)..