Cycling: The swan song of the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) continues. With Katusha and Orica-GreenEDGE, two WorldTour teams ended their membership in the voluntary anti-doping alliance this week. Only seven racing teams from the top racing class are therefore still members of the MPCC.
The Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible, founded in 2007, is unfortunately stumbling more and more towards sporting insignificance. Already last season three WorldTour teams canceled their membership (Lampre-Merida, Astana and LottoNL-Jumbo) and this week two more followed: Russian team Katusha and Orica-GreenEDGE. At the moment only AG2R-La Mondiale, Cannondale, Dimension Data, FDJ, Giant-Alpecin, IAM Cycling and Lotto Soudal remain from the top racing class. The remaining teams were either never members or left earlier.
While Orica-GreenEDGE's statement regarding the exit was rather short - according to the team, the crucial MPCC rules have now been incorporated into the UCI's rules and the goals have been achieved, the case with Katusha is a bit more complicated The Russian team is also under public pressure after the two doping cases involving Luca Paolini and Eduard Vorganov. The UCI Disciplinary Committee acquitted Katusha and refrained from a suspension due to the special circumstances of the Paolini case, but according to the MPCC statutes the team would still have to suspend racing and this is exactly where the problem lies.
The press release published by Katusha primarily complains about the lack of cooperation between the MPCC and the UCI. Since the rule changes of the UCI at the beginning of last year, in which the world association adopted some of the MPCC statutes into the official set of rules, the two organizations overlap but remain formally independent. If Katusha now follows the statutes of the MPCC after being acquitted by the UCI and suspends one or more WorldTour races, there is a risk of sanctions from the UCI, since there is formally an obligation to compete and the disciplinary committee of the world association decided against a suspension.
So with Katusha, you draw the conclusion and resign from the MPCC. While efforts are being made to emphasize that this is not a decision against the fight against doping, the decision does not reflect well on the team under criticism. It is reminiscent of the cases of Astana, LottoNL-Jumbo or Lampre-Merida, which also left the federation after coming into conflict with the rules. The teams have to put up with the question of what sense membership in an anti-doping association has if the membership is simply terminated in the event of violations.
Nevertheless, as is so often the case, this coin has two sides. Lampre-Merida team boss Brent Copeland tried to outline the problems for the teams to the British cycling portal Cyclingweekly: “Two different sets of rules create conflict and confusion. One side says yes, the other says no […]” said Copeland, who sees no future for the MPCC given the rule changes and overlaps. The Italian team took the then defending champion Chris Horner off the starting list at the 2014 Vuelta because his low cortisol levels violated the statutes of the MPCC. Last year Lampre-Merida and the MPCC clashed again and left the association.
Even for outsiders it is obvious that the organization and coordination between MPCC and UCI is far from perfect and these issues should be worked on. Nonetheless, the gradual decline of the anti-doping alliance is sending a devastating signal and it would be essential for cycling to change that.