The Tour de France started earlier this month, and one of the big stories of the spring was that the UCI allowed a 23rd team in each of the three Grand Tours – one more than usual. You may not know it, but ASO – the organiser of the Tour and other races like the Vuelta a España and Paris-Roubaix – has a rule of only granting wildcard spots to MPCC member teams. It is therefore not surprising that 16 of 17 second division ProTeams are members of the organisation.
This is not the case, however, for the WorldTour teams that are automatically selected: Visma-Lease a Bike were a member until 2015, but withdrew when one of their riders had to withdraw from the Giro d’Italia due to a low cortisol level, in accordance with the rules of the MPCC; Astana also left in 2015 because they refused to remove a rider from the Tour de France for having low cortisol levels; Alpecin-Deceuninck left in 2024 because they didn’t agree with our recommendations; and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe left at the beginning of this season because they said that all our rules had been adopted by the UCI and therefore it was no longer necessary to be a member of the MPCC.
I have no problem with teams leaving the MPCC – it’s voluntary membership, after all – but what I tell them is this: OK, but what do you propose to reduce suspicion around our sport? So far, they have not proposed anything. If we want less suspicion in sport, it is necessary that the big teams and riders, winners of the biggest races, are active in the fight against doping. Can you imagine the difference it would make to the image of the sport if Pogačar, Vingegaard, Evenepoel, Van der Poel and Van Aert joined the MPCC tomorrow? If a big rider said, “If I test positive, my career is over,” it would make a big difference to the suspicions that people have. But I also don’t want to say that if you’re not in the MPCC, that’s a bad thing – you join on a voluntary basis.
It is worth remembering why the MPCC started. In 2007, after the Operación Puerto affair – the last big EPO scandal – I was the manager of the Crédit Agricole team, and us and six other teams wanted to create a rule that said if a rider is involved in a doping case they can no longer race during the investigation period, and if they are suspended for more than six months then no team can hire them.
For 18 years, this rule has been respected by all the MPCC member teams. We’re proud of that, and in that period the…