Vacansoleil DCM given provisional membership of the MPCC

The number of provisional members of the anti-doping movement MPCC has risen again with the confirmation that the Vacansoleil DCM team has been given an initial green light. As is the case with the other provisional members, their full membership will be voted upon at the general meeting on February 7th.

In total 34 teams are currently listed as members, although the majority of those are awaiting verification from the eleven full members: these are WorldTour teams AG2R La Mondiale, Garmin-Sharp, Lotto-Belisol, Francaise des Jeux and Argos Shimano, plus Bretagne Schuller, Cofidis, Europcar, Iam, Netapp and Sojasun.

The breakdown of those 34 teams sees a total of nine WorldTour squads, fourteen Pro Continental outfits and eleven Continental teams.

The MPCC yesterday confirmed that Katusha has applied for membership, with the team saying that it is doing so in order to both underline its commitment to ethics and also to meet the requirements of race organisers.

At the end of November the association of international race organisers, the AIOCC, said that it would prioritise MPCC members when allocating wildcard invitations to events. When the MPCC full members vote on the appplications of the newer teams, they will presumably have to weigh up if those applications are opportunistic or if the teams concerned have a genuine commitment to anti-doping.

Katusha has had several doping positives and ethics is rumoured to be behind the UCI Licencing Commission’s refusal to give it a WorldTour licence. That decision is currently being appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which turned down a related request for a temporary WorldTour licence yesterday.

MPCC member teams commit to a number of extra anti-doping regulations, including not allowing riders to race from the point of a positive A sample; not signing riders for an additional two years when they return from a suspension of more than six months, with the exception of whereabouts cases; not giving corticoid injections without following that by an eight-day break from competition; to carry out internal procedures from the moment the team has its first positive case, and to undergo a voluntary suspension when there are several positive cases in a twelve month period.