The corticoids’ subject has always been key to the MPCC. 10 years after its inception, the movement continues to fight for changing perceptions on that topic.
Benoit Vaugrenard’s words are powerful as his speech summarizes the general feeling of the riders about corticoids. “Let’s ban it! Period. This sport still doesn’t know how to deal with this problem. I’m sure some riders keep playing an ambiguity game. We should have banned it a long time ago!” They all are aware of something, as Samuel Dumoulin puts it: “This is a major debate”. On many medical issues, opinions differ for cultural reasons. These divergences prevent our sport from reaching a consensus on this type of question that need to be clarified.
Within the MPCC, a team member commit to put to rest a rider if his cortisol level is under the standard limit. Consultant physician of the MPCC, Dr. Armand Mégret keeps saying that “there is a major sanitary decompensation risk, a mortal risk.” Dr Arthur Molique, team Cofidis physician, supports that riders have realized “our rules are implemented firstly in order to preserve their health.” Their comments are based on surveys of endocrinologist experts, as the MPCC always has.
In the event of a low cortisol level, the MPCC-team doesn’t put the question of knowing if the cortisone use was licit or illicit: the rider doesn’t take part in the competition anyway. In some of these cases in the past, a few teams turned their back on the commitment they made by leaving the movement instead of apply its rules.
However, Dr Arthur Molique is categoric about both the dangers that arise when a rider practices his sport with a low cortisol level and the impact of this medication on performance: “We know that corticoids have exhilarating effects, they are strong anti-inflammatory drugs, they create stimulating and psycho-stimulating effects. Then there is no need to prove that they can be performance enhancing molecules anymore. At least considering all of the uses that don’t fit to right medical practices.”
For all those reasons, the MPCC keeps asking the UCI and WADA a common cortisone regulation for the 11th year of its existence. In September 2013, this was one of the points the movement warned the candidates for the President of the UCI about. Some of the recommandations have since been implemanted: the principle of team suspension in case of several positive doping tests and the increasement of the duration of penalties for doping.