At the end of the second quarter, the MPCC has taken notice of a relatively low number of doping cases in cycling, the 13th highest among the sports listed (9 cases in 2025). Over and above the situation in our sport, a number of recent events have raised the question of transparency.
The tension between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and its American counterpart (USADA) has not yet subsided, as the latter is reluctant to pay its share of WADA’s 2025 operating budget. For the past two years, USADA’s CEO Travis Tygart has been at open war with the newly re-elected President of the world anti-doping regulator, Witold Banka. At issue are the agency’s alleged ‘lack of transparency’, its governance, which is deemed undemocratic, and its handling of the Chinese swimmers* case, which erupted in the spring of 2024, just a few weeks before the Olympic Games. So that the word war between the two leaders are damaging the image of sport and the world of anti-doping.
The recent holding of the « Enhanced Games » (May 21-24), games on the fringes of the Olympic movement that authorise performance-enhancing products, and a new offensive against WADA led by US senators are a reminder that it remains difficult to gather around the fight against doping if political considerations threaten the fight for fair and clean sport. The latter can only be ensured if all the stakeholders involved play the transparency card, an idea repeated time and again by USADA when it raises its complaints with WADA.
The agency is struggling to provide fast and effective answers on ban of certain medical methods that border on doping, such as carbon monoxide inhalation (banned by the UCI since February 1), for all sports. Other bans on substances such as Tapentadol, an opioid more powerful than Tramadol and used by some teams, have still not been imposed yet. Finally, latest press investigations are also leading us to be vigilant about microdoses, where major progress needs to be made in their detection.
Keeping the light on
TRANSPARENCY IS THE WATCHWORD IN ANTI-DOPING POLICIES
Above all, it is thanks to transparency, on the part of honest athletes and testing bodies (national agencies, laboratories, federations, etc.) that doping can be contained. It is also thanks to transparency that the MPCC is able to regularly assess the state of play in the fight against doping through the Credibility Figures. For example, some agencies and international federations do not make public the names of athletes accused of doping, most of the time for legal reasons and particularly concerning the protection of personal data.
This limit has been further illustrated by the publication of an article by Hajo Seppelt, a journalist specialized in the world of anti-doping, establishing that around a hundred athletes sanctioned by the German anti-doping agency (NADO Germany) have never had their names made public since 2020, largely because of the protection of their anonymity. In this way, NADO Germany is trying to protect itself from a large number of legal actions that would jeopardise its finances, but this has not prevented it from making public the cases of athletes Sofia and Sara Benfarès in 2024, and much more recently the case of canoeist Martin Hiller, world champion in 2022. WADA also emphasises in the World Code, a regulation imposed on all its signatories including Germany, that public disclosure of an athlete’s name is possible if the athlete is informed.
Reveal – Blow the whistle
ATHLETICS ON THE FRONT LINE
On the other hand, an organization as the AIU (Athletics Integrity Unit), the authority in charge of the fight against doping in athletics, works tirelessly on behalf of its sport. By way of example, the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) has not reported any case for over six months. It is a proof that the targets of harmonising the rules and increasing transparency are still a work in progress.
Thus in the first half of the year, the AIU, national anti-doping agencies and the press revealed 74 doping cases in athletics, which remains by far the most affected sport. Among those implicated in the second quarter were world silver medalist in the long and triple jump Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, from Ukraine, and Benard Kibet Koech, the 10-mile world record holder, from Kenya. The growing number of cases in MMA, which we have already highlighted in our previous reports, is now the third most cited sport, with 28 cases revealed in the first half of 2025. The AFLD (French Anti-Doping Agency) had already identified this trend in this sport a year ago, when it published its annual activity report.
France is also the 3rd most mentioned country for doping cases and sports fraud, packed in 4 sports : athletics, rugby, tennis (cases of corruption and/or match-fixing) and equestrian sports. However, France remains far behind Russia and India, whose growing number of cases, particularly in athletics, is raising questions.
BACK TO NORMAL IN CYCLING ?
Despite growing suspicions of cheating in recent years, only 9 cases of doping in cycling came to light after the first six months of the year. A year after the Andrea Piccolo case, no World Tour rider has been named. And at Pro Team level, it has to go back to 2022 to see a rider quoted in a doping case. However, two Continental riders tested positive for the second quarter.
Professional cycling has definitely paid a high price in the past and has therefore had to play the transparency card to weather the various storms it has experienced. Today, the MPCC is encouraging all the stakeholders in our sport to take their part in the fight against doping, whether they are riders, managers, race organisers, clubs or fans. Because it is by working together that cheating will be defeated.
*On 20 April 2024, the American daily newspaper The New York Times and the German television channel ARD published an investigation according to which 23 chinese swimmers had tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) during a national meeting (31 December 2020 – 3 January 2021), just a few months before the Tokyo Olympic Games (2021). CHINADA, the Chinese anti-doping agency, had not suspended any athletes, justifying its decision by the fact that the swimmers had been victims of food contamination.
