Doping chief: Crucial Team Sky records ‘stolen’
THE UK Anti-Doping chief blasted British Cycling, Team Sky and their doctor Richard Freeman for not keeping medical records which could shed light on whether star cyclist Bradley Wiggins received a banned medical product.
Nicole Sapstead, appearing before the all-party House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee looking into doping in sport, said Freeman claimed the information was lost when his laptop was stolen while on holiday in Greece in 2014.
She said she had yet to receive confirmation from Interpol as to whether the theft was reported. Freeman did not testify on Wednesday, saying he was too ill to attend.
Damian Collins, chairman of the committee, said it was a da mni ng i nd ic t ment of British Cycling that Freeman had not f i le d t he medica l records correct ly.
“It is a big issue that in the three years between the race and his going on holiday Dr Freeman had not uploaded the records,” Collins said, referring to a drop box other doctors could access.
“This undermines the message that British Cycling and Team Sky like to put out that they are the cleanest and most ethical in the sport.
“This is a really big problem with regard to the running of the whole team and that a doctor does not file what medicines he is giving to each rider properly.
“It is a pretty damning indictment and we will be holding t h e g ov e r n i n g b o d y t o account,” added the 43-yearold Conservative lawmaker.
Sapstead had hoped to bring clarity to whether a package sent out to Team Sky for eighttime Olympic gold medallist Wiggins in June 2011 at the climax of the Criterium du Dauphine contained the legal decongestant Fluimucil, as Freeman says.
It has been alleged, however, that the package contained the banned corticosteroid triamcinolone, and Sapstead said that although there was no record of Freeman ordering Fluimucil there were invoices for Kenalog – a brand name for triamcinolone.
‘There are no records’
Sapstead alleged there are substantial amounts of Kenalog at British Cycling’s headquarters in Manchester – Team Sky is its road-race offshoot – which suggests several riders use it.
However, she could not state categorically that this is what Wiggins had been sent in 2011 – he took it legally when he won the 2012 Tour de France having obtained a therapeutic use exemption ( TUE) because he said he needed it for asthma provoked by pollen.
TUE’s are official notes allowing athletes to use otherwise banned substances.
“There are no records . . . he [ Fre e man] k e p t medi c a l records on a laptop and he was meant, according to Team Sky policy, to upload those records to a dropbox that the other team doctors had access to,” said Sapstead, whose own enquiry has consumed 1,000 man hours and involved interviews with 34 current and former cyclists and British Cycling and Team Sky staff.
“But he didn’t do that, for whatever reason, and in 2014 his laptop was stolen while he was on holiday in Greece.”
While Interpol are still to get back to her over whether Freeman reported the theft, he did report it to British Cycling.
Earlier in the session Simon Cope, at the time a British Cycling coach and the man who had the package entrusted to him to take out to France, failed to shed any light on what was in it.
Cope’s 50-minute testimony failed to impress the lawmakers with one, John Nicolson, tweeting: “I’m left wondering whether I’d buy a used bike from Simon Cope and suspect the answer is no.