On 3 July 2015, on the eve of the Tour de France grand start in Utrecht, Astana decided to leave MPCC following a case of abnormally low cortisol level. On this day, the UCI stuck to its regulation by not allowing the Kazakh team to replace the rider because the sporting directors meeting had already taken place. So the team Astana refused to enter the Tour de France with only 8 riders and chose to keep the rider in race, breaking its commitment to MPCC. Under the rules of the movement – which are stricter than the ones of the UCI – a rider who face an abnormally low cortisol level must stop competition for a period of at least 8 days (Article 9 of the MPCC regulation).
At its General Assembly in October 2015, the teams and physicians members of MPCC agreed to renew their faith in the Article 9. MPCC also made public a request to the UCI: to make the international association change its rules in order to allow a team to do a last-minute rider replacement on the eve of a grand tour race. The point of the request was to avoid a double sanction for a team which need to prescribe a cortisone-based treatment to a rider in the last few days before a race as important as the Tour de France. If the rider still feels the effects of the treatment when the pre-race medical check-up is carried out, the team would be able to replace the sick rider.
Six months later, just days ahead of the start of the Giro d’Italia, the UCI Road Commission agreed to implement the amendment of its regulation in that regard. MPCC wants to thank the UCI for responding favourably to this request.