HEARING TO FOCUS ON TESTOSTERONE DELIVERY IN 2011

FORMER Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman is today scheduled to attend the medical tribunal in Manchester which will determine his fitness to practise.

The former British Cycling physician faces a four-week tribunal that will centre on the explosive allegation that he ordered testosterone gel for an athlete to boost their performance.

The inquiry into Dr Freeman (below) will cover 11 different accusations, including that he ordered 30 sachets of a testosterone gel to the Manchester Velodrome in 2011. Freeman denies any wrongdoing.

The doctor’s career is on the line but the tribunal could also affect the reputations of Team Sky and British Cycling.

Dr Freeman, who has suffered from mental illness, failed to turn up for a parliamentary committee hearing in 2017 and was also a noshow at former British cyclist Jess Varnish’s employment tribunal last December. But the indications last night were that the doctor will appear at the General Medical Council hearing today. If he does not attend, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service could press on without him. The MPTS suggested yesterday that such decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. If Freeman does appear, a tribunal scheduled to run for the best part of a month will begin this morning with the reading of evidence bundles, before the General Medical Council open their case this afternoon. Once under way, both Freeman and the witnesses being called — among them current and former Team Sky and British Cycling staff — will be asked to shed light on a situation that could amount to one of the greatest scandals in British sporting history. The allegations levelled at Freeman are certainly serious, with much of the focus on a delivery of testosterone he allegedly ordered in May 2011. Listed by the MPTS is the allegation he purchased it from medical suppliers in Oldham to enhance the performance of an athlete.

Freeman, it has been suggested, will claim the banned drug was for a member of staff suffering from erectile dysfunction.

Another of the allegations is that the doctor was then the architect of a cover-up that involves an email sent five months later by the medical supplier.

The MPTS say it is alleged ‘Dr Freeman made untrue statements, in that he denied making the order and advised that it had been made in error’.

It is understood there is evidence to support this, though not to support any claim that the testosterone was for a member of staff.

At this stage there are lots of unanswered questions but also lots of familiar names. Phil Burt was the British Cycling physiotherapist who handed the medication contained in the now infamous Team Sky Jiffy Bag to the secretary of former BC technical director Shane Sutton.

And it was Burt, who has since left the governing body, who reportedly opened the delivery containing the testosterone and brought it to the attention of his bosses. Burt said he could not remember what was in the Jiffy Bag.