Sutton ‘lying’ with doping denial, says team-mate
A FORMER team-mate of Shane Sutton has told a tribunal anyone involved in cycling during the time he rode with the ex-British Cycling technical director would be ‘absolutely lying’ if denying first-hand knowledge of doping.
In 2016, Sutton told a Parliamentary Committee under oath he had no direct knowledge of illicit drug-taking during his time as a coach or a rider. But Kvetoslav Palov, an ANC Halfords teammate of Sutton in 1987, disputed the veracity of that statement in evidence at the fitness-to-practise tribunal of former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman.
Palov said conversations about doping were commonplace within the peloton at the time, and one rumour suggested team soigneur Angus Fraser ‘spent £10,000 on drugs for Shane Sutton’ to help keep him in the Tour de France when he was struggling. ‘Anybody who has been in professional cycling for so long who claims he was never aware of anyone taking drugs in the sport is absolutely lying,’ said Palov.
The Czech-born rider was challenged on the accuracy of his own assertions by Simon Jackson QC, acting on behalf of the GMC, having said in his original statement that in Edinburgh prior to the opening stage of the 1987 Tour of Britain, he and Sutton had gone to a toilet at a fast food restaurant where there were ‘syringes all over the place from bike riders’.
Palov said he had tried to amend the wording of it as he had not gone to the toilet at the same time as Sutton, but those changes were not made.
‘The way I would have meant it at the time was that all the cyclists before the start would have used that toilet,’ he said. ‘My point was that if anyone was saying they had no knowledge of drug use it was absolutely not true.’