Cycling moves down sports' doping list three places to 8th, with 18 recorded cases in 2020

Cycling had the eighth-most doping cases in 2020, according to the Movement For Credible Cycling's 2020 'credibility barometer'.

The sport has dropped three places, from fifth the previous year, and up from 13th in 2018, in the MPCC's annual ranking of doping cases by sport.

There were 18 recorded doping cases in cycling in 2020, compared with the 113 in track and field that topped the list, and the 50 of second-place weightlifting.

These 18 cases in cycling is nearly half last year's total of 32, the MPCC saying 2019 was a "brutal year" for cycling, having seen its cases double from 2018's figures.

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Equestrian, MMA, tennis and baseball were the other sports that registered more doping cases, with cycling topping football, rugby and swimming.

The MPCC also showed the cases by country, with the USA recording the most, 76, followed by Russia with 42, while in Europe Italy and the UK were the two countries most affected by doping in 2020.

The MPCC says the drop in positives should be met with caution, as the coronavirus pandemic made it harder to organise doping controls than last year, and therefore adds complexity to how their latest barometer, published for the seventh consecutive year, is interpreted.

As well as the World Anti-Doping Agency and national federations not being able to carry out as many out-of-competition controls as in previous years, the large number of cancelled events also saw the number of in-competition tests decrease. This led to a 18.6 per cent fall in positive tests across all sports compared to 2019, and down 30 per cent on 2018's number.

There is some good news, however, with 2020 seeing the lowest number of WorldTour positives since its inception in 2005.

"Let us conclude this 2020 report with an encouraging figure: among the suspected doping cases, only three riders (men) belong to WorldTour Teams or ProTeams (there were 8 last year)," the MPCC said. "Not since the creation of the WorldTour 15 years ago has this number been so low."