Freeman: I never saw myself as a ‘poacher’

BRITISH Cycling’s former doctor Richard Freeman claims he would have been a ‘gamekeeper’ rather than a ‘poacher’ with regards to looking after riders.

Freeman is accused of ordering testosterone ‘knowing or believing’ it was to be given to a rider to enhance performance during his time working for the national governing body and Sky in 2011.

Freeman, who is the subject of a fitness-to-practise hearing at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal, denies this charge. He was asked by General Medical Council QC Simon Jackson if a medic with awareness of doping could become ‘gamekeeper turned poacher’.

Freeman said he knew little of cycling or doping when coming into the sport but made it his duty to learn. ‘I’d like to think I’m more the gamekeeper of Sky. There was due diligence when I joined to find out as much as possible,’ he said.

‘I expanded my knowledge in lots of ways. Yes, I’d want to know more about testing and EPO. It was a sharp, steep learning curve. That was as a gamekeeper. I can’t comment as a poacher because I never considered myself a poacher.’

Freeman worked for Bolton Wanderers before taking up his dual role. He says he knew so little of cycling and its doping issues when he came into the job that the Floyd Landis scandal passed him by. Landis was stripped of Tour de France victory after a positive test in 2006 and admitted years later he had taken performance-enhancing substances. Asked if he knew of the admission, Freeman said: ‘No but obviously subsequently I’ve heard that. I wasn’t a cycling aficionado. It wasn’t an interest to me.’