PRESSURE BUILDS ON TEAM SKY
THE pressure is mounting on Team Sky to explain their part in the Sir Bradley Wiggins drug controversy after the 2012 Tour de France winner suggested the decision to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption was instigated by them.
Now that Wiggins has publicly discussed his use of the banned corticosteroid, triamcinolone, with Andrew Marr on the BBC, Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford is expected to take questions on the subject. Until then there had been a reluctance to discuss what remain Wiggins’ medical records, even though they have been leaked by the Russian hackers, Fancy Bears.
Wiggins muddied the waters for himself with Marr yesterday by suggesting he secured a certificate to use the powerful asthma drug because he was struggling with his breathing before the 2012 Tour. His account of that period in his own autobiography — published in the same year — was different. He said that, a couple of minor colds aside, he had been so healthy he had barely missed a day’s training.
But he also told Marr the conversation to apply for permission to have injections prior to the 2011 and 2012 Tours and the 2013 Giro d’Italia had been instigated by a team with a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on doping.
Wiggins might have used triamcinolone in 2011 but he spoke to Marr in a pre-recorded interview broadcast yesterday morning of how he was ‘struggling’ with asthma in the build-up to the 2012 Tour. ‘When you win the race three weeks out from the Tour de France, as I did, you’re the favourite for the Tour,’ Wiggins said. ‘(And) you have the medical team and coaches checking everything’s OK – “Bradley, you’re on track here, you’re the favourite to win this race, now we need to make sure the next three weeks... is there anything we can help with at the moment?”
‘(I say) “Well, I’m still struggling with this breathing, I know it didn’t look like it but is there anything else you can do just to make sure this doesn’t become an issue into a three-week race at the height of the season?’
‘And, in turn, I took that medical advice (to take triamcinolone).’
Like Wiggins, Team Sky have maintained they have operated within the rules. ‘[Exemptions] for Team Sky riders have been granted by the appropriate authorities and in complete accordance with the rules,’ they said.
But with respiratory experts questioning the treatment and former dopers suggesting there are echoes of their own abuse of the system — they claim triamcinolone is performance- enhancing because it aids weight loss and is a powerful anti-inflammatory that works for a number of weeks — Sky now have to answer the question of whether they think it was ethically correct for Wiggins to be using the drug.