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The crumbling credibility of the MPCC in world cycling

Roar Rookie
13th February, 2015
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Diego Ulissi took out Stage 4 of the 2016 Giro d'Italia. (Image: David Hill/The Roar)
Roar Rookie
13th February, 2015
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The Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) sounded like a great idea when it started. By joining, cycling teams could stand up and tell the world they strongly opposed doping. But does the organisation have any role to play beyond the spin of a good press release?

Diego Ulissi is a gun rider for Lampre Merida and a convicted drug cheat. Ouch, that sounds harsh given that it may have been simply an accidental violation, if you believe the defendant.

Ulissi had an excess amount of an asthma medication in his system. His Therapeutic Use Exemption allowed him to have a prescribed amount onboard but his blood readings went far beyond the limit.

Suffering from bronchitis, there is no doubt he needed the drug, but we’ll never know whether it’s overuse was accidental or a deliberate attempt to cheat. He received a nine-month suspension, which is lenient for a doping penalty. Perhaps his defence lawyer convinced the UCI anti-doping tribunal of his good character?

Ulissi returns to racing in April, which seems to irk the MPCC, of which Lampre is a member. A press release on February 11 pointedly suggests the Italian team would be wrong to race Ulissi as soon as his suspension expires.

Rule 2 of the MPCC says that a team “can’t hire, until two years, a rider tested positive and suspended more than six months”.

No problem, say Lampre. Ulissi has been a contracted rider since 2010, so he’s certainly not been signed up since the violation. He’s simply been stood down from racing as the UCI required.

The MPCC obviously feel that Lampre Merida have violated the spirit of the rule if not the written code itself.

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However, the outworking of a wider interpretation of Rule 2 would mean member teams are effectively signing up to a two-year minimum suspension for all violations. They would be overriding any lesser penalties handed out by the UCI. This goes far beyond a two-year time-out for signing previously penalised riders to a team.

The MPCC is a voluntary association that teams join in order to publicly commit to upholding strict anti-doping standards. It’s good PR. Eleven of the 17 World Tour teams and 19 of the 20 Pro Continental teams have signed up.

They do a cute bright blue “I’m Clean” rubber wrist band too, but it never took off the way the Livestrong yellow ones did. That’s probably a good thing.

The limitations and misapplications of their rules are causing them a large credibility problem. In 2014 Astana were guilty of four serious doping violations. However by carefully stepping through the rules they did enough to avoid being expelled from the group.

This leaves the World Tour’s worst offenders in recent years still brazenly waving the MPCC flag. It’s not a good look.

Perhaps this jab at Lampre is a clumsy attempt to reassert some authority. By their own written code they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.

In light of their inability to sanction Astana, I wonder how they will react if Lampre ignore this please explain notice.

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In 2007 the MPCC was started in order to raise the bar to a higher standard than was required by a floundering UCI. However their member guidelines now seem to allow teams to remain in the clean camp even when found guilty of flagrant and repeated doping breaches.

I argue that if the MPCC have a problem with the penalties being handed out by the UCI they should lobby the tribunal for harsher suspensions rather than introduce their own bans.

Lord knows the UCI tribunal decisions can be confusing and inconsistent enough on their own. Do we really want another layer of sanctions muddling the issue?

The MPCC logo looks great painted on a team’s bus and probably comforts the sponsors, but their inconsistent responses in the Lampre and Astana cases have done nothing to improve the credibility of cycling.

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