Froome has faint praise
Without him there is no Team Sky
CHRIS FROOME has given his qualified support to Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford in warning they could collapse without him.
But the three-time Tour de France winner stopped short of following in the footsteps of many of his team-mates, who offered their boss full backing as he defends himself amid the ongoing UK AntiDoping investigation into allegations of wrongdoing which has heaped scrutiny on the British squad.
Several Team Sky riders had reportedly discussed considering whether to ask Brailsford to quit, but the former British Cycling performance director received the public backing of Geraint Thomas and others.
However, an endorsement from Froome was conspicuous by its absence – until yesterday, when he issued a considered 200-word statement which acknowledged Team Sky and Brailsford were inextricably linked.
“Without Dave B there is no Team Sky,” he wrote. “He has created one of the best sports teams in the world.
“He has supported me throughout the last seven years of my career and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities and the experiences I’ve had.
“By his own admission, mistakes have been made, but protocols have been put in place to ensure that those same mistakes will not be made again.
“I know it will take time for faith to be restored, but I will do my utmost to ensure that happens, along with everyone else at Team Sky.”
When asked about Froome’s lack of public backing last week, Brailsford said he and his star rider had “had a good conversation”. The UKAD investigation centres on whether antidoping rules were broken by Team Sky or Sir Bradley Wiggins on the last day of the Criterium du Dauphine race in June 2011. Team Sky, Wiggins and Brailsford deny wrongdoing over the contents of a mystery package.
Five-time Olympic champion Wiggins has already been in the spotlight after it was revealed he received special clearance for three injections of triamcinolone, a powerful corticosteroid, to treat a pollen allergy before his three biggest races in 2011, 2012, and 2013. But he would have committed a doping offence if he had received a triamcinolone jab at the Dauphine without getting permission, known as a therapeutic use exemption, Dr Richard Freeman, the former Team Sky medic, and Wiggins deny it was triamcinolone and say the drug delivered was the legal decongestant Fluimucil, administered via a nebuliser. This news was first aired publicly by Brailsford to MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in December and the Team Sky boss said he would provide documentation to prove it.
But earlier this month, in a second select committee hearing, UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead said her agency’s investigation had found no records to prove or disprove it was Fluimucil and an “excessive amount” of triamcinolone was kept in Manchester for just one rider.
Sapstead’s revelation led committee chairman Damian Collins to claim the reputation of British Cycling and their professional offshoot Team Sky was “in tatters”. Brailsford hit at “inaccurate assertions and assumptions” in the UKAD investigation, saying there was a “fundamental difference between process failures and wrongdoing”.
Froome added: “I completely understand why people feel let down by the way in which the situation has been handled, and going forward we need to do better.
“I’d like to apologise for this on behalf of myself and the other riders of Team Sky who feel passionately about our sport and winning clean.
“I believe in the people around me and what we are doing.”