At the start of the Tour of Spain, which began on Saturday, the MPCC had 40 individual member riders. This race is also an opportunity to highlight the efforts made by member teams over the years in the fight against doping.
Starting with its female counterpart in mid-May, the grand tour season is currently concluding with the men’s Vuelta, which started on Saturday in Italy. The Vuelta is an opportunity to give credit to our four MPCC member teams from the Iberian Peninsula, which have been committed to credible cycling for several years. However, when our movement was established in 2007, Spanish cycling was going through one of the worst crisis in its history, following Operacion Puerto. A rethink was necessary for Spain, a stronghold of international cycling, to put an end to all the excesses committed and to survive.
In order to make this challenge possible, it was necessary to be actively involved in the fight against doping. This is the very essence of the MPCC’s commitment. Today, all those involved in our sport, whether managers, riders or technical staff, are invited to continue this fight against cheating, for the credibility of cycling. As a result, 40 of the 184 riders who started the Vuelta are individual members of the MPCC. They compete in 18 of the 23 teams taking part in the race, as was the case in the last Tour de France. This figure reflects the diversity of positions taken by riders within the peloton and reminds everyone that the membership is voluntary, based solely on the rider’s free will.
Being active in the fight against doping
However, only 12 of the 23 teams participating in the Tour of Spain are members of the MPCC : our seven World Tour teams and the five wild-card Pro Teams (Israel – Premier Tech, Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, Lotto, Caja Rural – Seguros RGA and Burgos – Burpellet – BH). In addition, a rider who has been suspended for at least six months in the past is also participating in the race for a team that is not a member of our movement. Indeed, one of its fundamental rules is that a team must not hire a rider who has been suspended for at least six months until two years after the suspension. The rider in question was recently sanctioned and would therefore not have been able to ride with one of our member teams.
This fact shows how far we still have to go before the values upheld by the MPCC are shared by the majority. Nevertheless, we are pleased to see these riders and member teams formally taking a clear stance against doping and hope that other stakeholders in cycling will join us in the fight.