Team Grand Est - Komugi - La Fabrique new MPCC member
A 16th women's team is joining the MPCC. The French team Team Grand Est - Komugi - La Fabrique, through its manager Laurent Goglione, has applied for membership. He said: "We can only imagine the cycling of tomorrow and the still nascent women's cycling as a clean sport.
Team Grand Est - Komugi - La Fabrique, a structure created in 2018 initially at the amateur level, entered the UCI continental level in 2023. The team is made up of fifteen riders, including five Frenchwomen, among them Perrine Clauzel, one of the world's best specialists in the cyclo-cross discipline. Seven nationalities from four different continents are represented in this very international team.
"We want to adopt and respect the MPCC regulations in order to defend clean cycling with them, based in particular on the notions of transparency, responsibility and mobilisation of our managers, staff and riders", says Laurent Goglione, team manager. "We can only imagine the cycling of tomorrow and the still nascent women's cycling as a clean sport, transparent in its approaches and attitudes, focused on sporting performance, in a legal and respectful manner."
Team Corratec joins the MPCC!
A new ProTeam joins the MPCC: Team Corratec, an Italian structure managed by Serge Parsani.
In 2023, Team Corratec will spend its second season in the pelotons, the first in the ProTeam division. The Italian team joined the MPCC at the request of its manager, Serge Parsani: "We commit ourselves to respecting the internal regulations of the MPCC, a movement whose ethical principles we recognise as aiming to protect the image of cycling, guarantee the respect of anti-doping regulations and the spirit of association for the active representation of the rights and interests of its members."
Team Corratec has a squad of 20 riders, including several former WorldTour riders: Valerio Conti, who wore the pink jersey in the 2019 Giro d'Italia, Alexander Konychev, Charlie Quarterman, Karel Vacek and Attilio Viviani.
Women WorldTour 2022: 25% of invited teams members of the MPCC
If we compare to the men's World Tour, the difference with women is obvious: 25% of the wild cards for 2022 WWT races were granted to MPCC member teams, whearas the ratio was 96% for the men's WorldTour events. Yet, our movement sees some very encouraging signs.
On the men's side, the MPCC has been working for a number of years to ensure that wild cards to teams outsider the first division are given exclusively to teams that are members of our movement.
A large number of race organisers have long been in favour of teams that adhere to our philosophy. ASO's Director of Cycling has reaffirmed on several occasions that his choice would always be for teams imposing stricter ethical rules, in order to favour the credibility of our sport. This policy has led to almost all the second division teams joining the MPCC.
For women races, the process is only just beginning to stabilise on the basis of a project set up by the UCI when a Women World Tour was created in 2016, similar to the one that has existed for men since 2005. The women's calendar has been structured with the introduction of new races, culminating in the creation of the Tour de France Femmes this year. The first division has been greatly expanded, from 8 teams in 2020 to 15 for 2023. As these WorldTeams are automatically selected in the events that make up the Women World Tour, the number of invitations for the teams that complete the field in these events is gradually decreasing.
At the the same time, the MPCC has recorded its first memberships: to date, 14 women's teams have joined the movement (including 6 WorldTeams). But our of about 50 continental teams (all of which are potentially eligible to apply for an invitation to WWT events), only 8 are currently members of our movement.
The MPCC therefore encourages both the WorldTeams and all Continental Teams to adhere to the values defended by our movement. We are pleased that Christian Prudhomme is committed to applying the same conditions to women's events as to men's wild cards. The MPCC hopes that in the wake of ASO, the other race organisers of WWT events will adopt the same line of conduct.
Cholet-Pays de la Loire, 11th race organiser to join the MPCC
Cholet-Pays de la Loire joins the MPCC and becomes the 11th race organiser to commit to the movement.
After the Ain Bugey Valromey Tour, the Chrono des Nations, the Circuit de la Sarthe (Tour des Pays de la Loire in 2023), the Grand Prix de Wallonie, the Route d'Occitanie, the Boucles de la Mayenne, the Route Adélie, the Tour de l'Ain, the Tour of Japan and the Tour de Wallonie, Cholet-Pays de la Loire becomes the 11th organising entity to join the MPCC. The French one-day race, directed by Jean-Michel Jeanneteau, is one of the rounds of the FDJ French Cup.
Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team member of the MPCC
For its first season of existence in 2023 as a ProTeam, Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team joins the MPCC!
The Swiss-registered team is managed by Douglas Ryder, who from 1997 to 2021 was running the Qhubeka-NextHash team, which was already a member of the MPCC. The South African has renewed his commitment to our movement even before his new structure has started competing. The team will be composed of more than 20 riders, among them Carl Fredrik Hagen, Matteo Moschetti, Tobias Ludvigsson, Gianluca Brambilla, Damien Howson, or the 4th of the last Paris-Roubaix Tom Devriendt. The referring physician will be Dr Lorenz Emmert.
Douglas Ryder: "As Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, we will use our platform to the promote the sport of cycling in a credible way and ensure we participate in a fair and equal environment. Rooted in our team identity is our mission of ‘Racing the Future,’ which guides us to be focused and conscious of the impact and contributions our decisions have on the professional sport, the environment, and the people we meet along the way. We believe that this aligns with the MPCC’s ethos, one that is based on credibility, transparency, and responsibility and we look forward to working together in promoting these values."
Press release of 31 October
The General Assembly of the MPCC was held on 26 October in Paris, on the eve of the official presentation of the Tour de France 2023.
With 1046 members (from 42 nationalities), 50 teams (36 men's and 14 women's), 568 riders and 383 staff members, MPCC has never been so international and indispensable to the credibility of cycling.
The MPCC welcomed the fact that its members were complying with its internal rules in 2022, in particular by not entering riders who were the subject of a procedure into competition. Since 2007, members who have joined the movement on a voluntary basis have always complied with the rules or have been asked to leave the MPCC.
Invited to this General Assembly, Olivier Banuls, from the International Testing Agency (ITA), gave a presentation of his work to the members of our movement. The MPCC is very pleased to have had the honour of this visit and fully supports the independent international body in its fight against doping. On its website, the MPCC has been promoting since 2022 the Reveal program, which encourages, anonymously or not, to share information that can help the ITA in its mission and increase the credibility of cycling. The MPCC strongly supports the proposed increase in the ITA's budget for cycling's anti-doping programme, with a graduated increase in contributions in 2023 and 2024.
In 2022, WADA banned the use of glucocorticoids, stating that this substance improves performance! But it took a long time to put it in place: since 2007, the MPCC member teams have voluntarily submitted to cortisol tests while calling, each year, for the authorities to ban the use of glucocorticoids.
The MPCC regrets that tramadol will not appear on the same list of prohibited products and methods until 2024. As with glucocorticoids, the MPCC has been calling for a ban since 2012. Why not ban it on 1 January 2023?
On the occasion of this General Assembly, several members took the opportunity to underline the need for cycling to communicate better on the effectiveness of its fight against doping. This call was made in a context where doping cases in other major sports, involving top international athletes, have not received the same media attention as similar cases in cycling in the past. This ability can also only be developed if more and more members join the MPCC: men's teams, women's teams, riders, staff, sponsors, organisers, federations, sports agents.
On the proposal of the Board of Directors, MPCC wishes to involve women's cycling in its work as it does for men's cycling. 14 women's teams are already members of the MPCC, and it is important that the majority of women's teams adhere to the MPCC philosophy in the best interests of cycling and the organisers. Emily Brammeier, representing the DSM women's team, was elected to the MPCC Board of Directors as the Women's Cycling Referent.
The General Assembly voted unanimously for the new constitution of the MPCC Bureau:
- Roger Legeay (President)
- Iwan Spekenbrink (Vice-President)
- DSM
- Vincent LAVENU (Vice-President)
- AG2R CITROEN
- Philippe Senmartin (Secretary)
- TOTAL ENERGIE
- Franck Trajber (Assistant secretary)
- COFIDIS
- Sébastien Hinault (Treasurer)
- ARKEA-SAMSIC
- Marc Madiot (Assistant treasurer) *
- GROUPAMA FDJ
- Christophe BRANDT (Member)
- BINGOAL PAUWELS SAUCES WB
- Emily Brammeier (Member)*
- DSM WOMEN
*newcomers
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