The Motion for a Credible Biking (MPCC) has revealed that 29 doping circumstances emerged in biking throughout 2022.
That’s ten greater than in 2021 and the second highest tally previously eight years. Nonetheless the MPCC identified that almost all circumstances have been at Continental crew stage somewhat than WorldTour stage.
Considerably sarcastically, the MPCC urged that simply two circumstances at WorldTour and ProTeam stage was the bottom stage since 1998, when EPO use was thought-about rife and the Festina doping affair exploded on the Tour de France.
The MPCC describes itself as an “affiliation aiming at defending clear biking.”
“Transparency, accountability and our members’ engagement are the pillars of our id. MPCC can be a whistleblower on corticosteroids, tramadol, stilnox and mechanical doping.”
The MPCC gathered knowledge from federations, anti-doping companies, courts and the media for its annual report, solely considering circumstances referring to skilled athletes. It then collated the data, ordering it by sport and nation, and revealed it below its annual credibility figures.
The 29 biking circumstances got here from 15 international locations and 6 biking disciplines. 23 out of 29 circumstances concerned male riders.
The MPCC created an infographic to spotlight how athletics was the worst sport for doping and fraud. 120 circumstances of doping, fraud, match fixing and corruption that usually involved employees of the athletes, have been recorded. Weightlifting had 68, biking 29 and swimming 10.
“In 2022, the massive majority of doping proceedings in top-level biking involved semi-professional males riders from continental highway groups (12 circumstances). The Portuguese crew W52-FC Porto was even disbanded after the police revealed doable organised doping,” the MPCC defined.
“Not one of the circumstances revealed among the many continental groups involved an MPCC member crew. At first of this yr, our motion tallied 30 professional groups (women and men) and solely 21 continental groups.”
The MPCC included Nairo Quintana’s optimistic exams for tramadol in the course of the 2022 Tour de France of their statistics. Since March 2019, tramadol has been banned for in-competition use by the UCI, although testing optimistic for tramadol does not represent a WADA anti-doping rule violation.
Tramadol is an opiate ache remedy which made headlines within the mid-2010s, with the Motion for Credible Biking (MPCC) having requested a ban on the drug way back to 2013 following experiences of widespread utilization within the peloton.
Arkéa-Samsic is a member of the MPCC however was praised by the organisation for banning Quintana from competitors and ending his contract.
“In compliance with our strict moral guidelines, it must be added that no MPCC member crew subsequently determined to rent the Colombian rider and that this angle appears to have turn out to be indispensable for everybody.”
Quintana has nonetheless to discover a crew for 2023 and has repeatedly denied taking tramadol. He has tried to talk to the UCI and the MPCC and plans to journey to Europe from Colombia to attempt to discover a crew however neither has intentions to assist his case.
9 of the 19 males’s WorldTour groups are members of the MPCC: AG2R Citroën, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Arkéa-Samsic, Bora-Hansgrohe, Cofidis, EF Training-EasyPost, Groupama FDJ, Intermarché Circus Wanty and Staff DSM.
The MPCC crew referred to as on the smaller Continental groups to affix the affiliation to assist keep away from doping circumstances.
“We strongly encourage these semi-professional groups to affix the MPCC, with a purpose to put their ethics and credibility on the coronary heart of our sport’s issues,” the MPCC stated.
