Ethics
Commitment
The fight against doping
Prevention and the fight against doping are of paramount importance to the AG2R CITROËN team. Team managers, riders and staff are constantly aware of the need to work day after day to ensure that the sport is doping-free.
Many measures have been put in place in our team to respect the principle of clean and ethical sport, which is essential for everyone's health:
- A system of prevention within the team: full medical and paramedical supervision during training courses, competitions or any other trip, so that no-one other than the team's medical staff can intervene on a medical level within the team.
- A check by the team doctor of all medical procedures proposed outside the framework of the team, with the aim of validating them before they are carried out.
- Teaching all riders staff about current anti-doping legislation and the additional constraints imposed by the team in the fight against doping.
- Biological check-ups and unannounced health checks at the discretion of the team doctor throughout the year, including during Grand Tours if necessary.
- Inclusion in the team's internal regulations of specific points concerning ethics and the fight against doping, for both riders and the team management.
- Absolute compliance with the daily whereabouts program by riders to enable unannounced doping controls, as well as full acceptance of the national and international anti-doping program and in particular adherence to the Union Cycliste Internationale biological passport.
- The expulsion or non-renewal of the contract of any rider or supervisor who fails to comply with the internal rules and regulations, or who fails to carry out the assessments required by the team.
- The involvement of a psychologist with riders and management, in particular to raise awareness of ethical issues.
- The team's adherence to the MPCC (Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible) and its regulations, which impose additional constraints in the fight against doping.
- The creation and support of the team's training center, Chambéry Cyclisme Formation, to train young cyclists and encourage them to develop in an ethically-oriented sport (the professional team's doctor is also the training center's doctor).
Throughout the season, the team doctor is supported by the manager and sponsor in promoting health initiatives.
Involvement
MPCC
AG2R LA MONDIALE, Citroën and Vincent LAVENU, General Manager of the professional cycling team, have been advocating the practice of cycling in line with ethical rules, and in particular with those of the Mouvement pour un Cyclisme Crédible (MPCC) since the organization was founded.
Vincent LAVENU, supported by his coaching team (sports managers, doctors, nutritionists, trainers, psychologists, physiotherapists), takes every possible precaution to ensure that riders complies with sporting rules based on irreproachable ethics.
The AG2R CITROËN cycling team is a founding member of the MPCC, created in July 2007.
AG2R LA MONDIALE and Citroën are also members of the MPCC as sponsors.
The MPCC's code of ethics not only complies with the International Cycling Union's Code of Conduct and the rules laid down by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but goes even further, imposing even stricter rules.
It includes :
- Withdrawal of a rider as soon as a positive test is received at an event,
- The non-engagement of a rider involved in a doping case and having been sanctioned for more than six months in the two years following the suspension.
- Legal action against any rider positive for damage to the team's image
- Actions to combat the use of harmful or doping substances such as corticosteroids: in this context, it is essential that local corticosteroid infiltrations are validated by the team doctor, who must then prescribe a minimum of eight days off work, and therefore off competition.
- Team introspection when faced with several cases of positivity or ineptitude.
- A concomitant fight against technological fraud, which is considered by the MPCC to be a positive control, with the same consequences.
- Additional, unannounced blood tests.
MPCC.fr