CREDIBILITY IS GONE IN A JIFFY

Anti-doping supremo damns Sky’s dubious story of THAT package

‘Team Sky and British Cycling are in a terrible position’

AS Damian Collins observed after hearing the astonishing testimony of the UK’s antidoping chief, Team Sky’s claim to be the cleanest and most ethical cycling team in the world can no longer be taken seriously.

An investigation into the medical package ordered by Team Sky for Sir Bradley Wiggins in June 2011 had exploded that myth, just as it has left the reputation of key individuals in tatters.

Nicole Sapstead, the UK AntiDoping chief executive, told a parliamentary select committee that the investigation was sparked by an allegation that Wiggins may have committed a serious doping violation linked to the contents of the package in June 2011 — a year before he won the 2012 Tour de France.

Sapstead also revealed that Team Sky and their former doctor, Richard Freeman, had been unable to provide any evidence of what was in the now-infamous Jiffy bag because records had not been properly maintained.

Freeman, who withdrew from appearing before the committee citing ill health, is fighting for his professional life, with Sapstead saying she expects the General Medical Council to get involved.

She said he was certainly in breach of Team Sky’s medical protocols because there was no record of any medication given to a rider during the Dauphine race which Wiggins won.

Team Sky doctors, Sapstead revealed, were expected to upload medical records into a filesharing service that could be accessed by all members of the medical team. But investigators discovered Freeman was alone among the team doctors in not doing this, keeping all records on a personal laptop he claims was stolen in Greece in 2014.

This was a catastrophic day for Team Sky, British Cycling and key individuals in the sport.

Collins, the select committee chairman, published a letter from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHPRA) that suggested Freeman had not followed their guidelines on the use of unlicensed medication. ‘The credibility of Team Sky and British Cycling is in tatters,’ said Collins. ‘They are in a terrible position.’

But the future of Sir Dave Brailsford as team principal at Sky also has to be in serious doubt when the bad practices exposed by UKAD investigators took place with him in charge.

In 2011, Freeman was the chief medic for both Team Sky and British Cycling and continues to be in charge at the governing body. At the same time, Brailsford was also working as team principal at Sky and performance director at British Cycling, only stepping down from the latter role in 2014.

During yesterday’s explosive, two-hour hearing there was a car crash of a testimony from Simon Cope, the former British Cycling coach and current boss of Team Wiggins who delivered the package ordered by Freeman to the French Alps. At one stage, when Cope’s account of what happened contradicted evidence contained in his own expenses, he conceded that he may have ‘fiddled’ his expenses. ‘We all try to do that, don’t we?’ Cope asked MPs.

Sapstead said more than 1,000 man hours have so far been dedicated to discovering whether the Jiffy bag contained triamcinolone — the banned corticosteroid central to the Wiggins medical exemption controversy.

In December, Wiggins’ former coach Shane Sutton told the committee Freeman had informed him at the time that he administered the medication in the package to the rider after he had secured what, at that stage, was the biggest win of his road career.

If the medication was triamcinolone, Wiggins would have needed a medical exemption. But Russian hackers revealed the three exemptions he had for triamcinolone during his road career and he did not have one on June 12, 2011.

In the same hearing three months ago, Brailsford told MPs that Freeman had informed him the package contained a legal decongestant called Fluimucil that would have been available over the counter in pharmacies in France.

Brailsford nevertheless confirmed they asked Cope to travel to Manchester to collect the Fluimucil before flying to Geneva four days later, even though Wiggins was said to be ill and needed the medicine.

But Sapstead said there were no documents to support Freeman’s claim that the package contained Fluimucil, which in itself amounts to a breach of MHPRA guidelines.

Sapstead provided an alarming insight into the National Cycling Centre in Manchester. Not only did Freeman operate in a dual role, but a single medical room served both the professional road team and the governing body, with medicines leaving their stores without being properly audited.

There was, said Sapstead, evidence of large triamcinolone orders and again no record of how the drug was administered and to whom. If used to treat asthma and allergy problems, experts say triamcinolone should only be used in the most extreme cases.

Sapstead said the triamcinolone ordered by Freeman was either an ‘excessive amount being ordered for one person or quite a few people had a similar problem.’

Triamcinolone has a history of abuse in road cycling. Riders would use it for weight loss and recovery. One report written by David Walsh of The Sunday Times says that at Team Sky, Wiggins was the only rider in the team with depressed cortisol levels which indicate the use of cortisone drugs like triamcinolone.

Discussing the findings of the UKAD investigation with MPs, Sapstead said: ‘We are not able to confirm or refute that the package contained Fluimucil. We have asked for inventories and medical records and we have not been able to ascertain that because there are no records.’

Asked specifically about Freeman, she added: ‘He kept medical records on a laptop and he was meant, according to Sky policy, to upload those records to Dropbox that the other doctors had access to. But he didn’t do that and in 2014 his laptop was stolen on holiday in Greece.’

Sapstead said the investigation started on September 23 after UKAD ‘received information to suggest a possible anti-doping violation had been committed’ with the ‘additional allegation that the package contained triamcinolone.’

She said they had interviewed 34 people, with only Freeman offering an explanation of what the package contained.

Phil Burt, the physio who packed the Jiffy bag, could not recall and nor could Wiggins, although he claimed he had been administered Fluimucil on the night of the final day of the Dauphine. Sapstead said: ‘There are no records of any treatment during the course of that event.’

Sapstead also said investigators

had been ‘met with resistance’ by Team Sky and British Cycling, saying it was only at the end of January they obtained all the documents they wanted.

Collins told Sapstead: ‘ The overall picture you create is extremely concerning’ and afterwards stressed the desire to put questions to Freeman. It was claimed last night he has requested treatment from a psychiatrist.

Sapstead added that while Team Sky had a policy for keeping comprehensive medical records, British Cycling did not.

‘I would expect for a professional road cycling team that was founded on a premise of exhibiting that road racing could be conducted cleanly to have records,’ she said. Cope succeeded only in damaging the reputation of Team Sky and British Cycling further. Now the boss of Team Wiggins, he had a clear memory of certain details but claimed not to have known the contents of a package he took across international borders and had in his possession for four days.

He admitted he probably misled airport staff when asked if he had packed the contents of the bag.

One MP told Cope ‘at the heart of the evidence there’s something deeply suspicious’.

In a statement, Team Sky insisted they are ‘confident there has been no wrongdoing’ but did not address any key issues. British Cycling acknowledged serious failings in their record-keeping at the time but claimed it has improved.