My hope, Chris, is that you’re not as stupid and cynical as you sound
Froome’s lectures after his failed test are embarrassing
SOON after the news first broke that he had failed a drugs test, Chris Froome spoke to the BBC. ‘This is not a positive test,’ he declared. Er, right. OK. It looked awfully like a positive test to the uninitiated but then so much in cycling and so much about Team Sky in particular is never quite what it seems.
Team Sky are good at weasel words now. They’ve had an awful lot of practice. They’ll go to work in the next few weeks. Sir Dave Brailsford, the team principal, will twist and writhe. And maybe they’ll find a reason to exonerate Froome. I hope so, although the safest policy in many sports these days is to believe in no one. That way, there’s less chance of looking like a naïf.
Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves about the organisation we’re dealing with here too. ‘If you didn’t write the story, is there anything else that could be done?’ Brailsford once asked my colleague, Matt Lawton.
I’m sure that in Froome’s current predicament, there is plenty that could be done. The team’s lawyers, we are told, are already hard at work on his ride to redemption. Look, even I know this is far from a simple bust and that there is a good chance Froome will be able to prove extenuating circumstances and that only a real novice would get caught taking too much salbutamol, which is not even on the banned list — though Froome had twice the permitted amount in his system — and does not have any particularly dramatic performance-enhancing benefits.
Maybe issues around dehydration and his metabolism will explain Froome’s failed test and clear him. Again, I hope so. In the last few years, he has emerged as one of our greatest sportsmen of all time. If he does not clear his name, the dreams of many who idolised him will be shattered.
As with many of the incidents that have stripped Team Sky of their credibility, though, it was the reaction to Froome’s failed test that killed them.
After declaring that the positive test was not a positive test, Froome then thought that, even though he had just been singled out for committing an offence, it would be the right time to wallow in the ecstasy of sanctimony.
So Froome lectured us all on the life-threatening repercussions for asthmatics of us having the temerity to wonder why he had returned an adverse analytical finding that was double the permitted level of salbutamol.
‘It’s sad seeing the misconceptions that are out there about athletes and salbutamol use,’ wrote Froome on Twitter. ‘My hope is that this doesn’t prevent asthmatic athletes from using their inhalers in emergency situations for fear of being judged. It is not something to be ashamed of.’
Well, my hope, Chris, is that you are not quite as stupid as you sound. My hope is that you are not quite as cynical as you seem. My hope is that you realise that, actually, Team Sky and your former teammate, Sir Bradley Wiggins, have made handsome contri- butions to the widespread scepticism about the use of drugs to treat asthma in the entirely legal pursuit of cycling greatness and that, if people doubt you now, I’m sorry, but it’s Team am Sky’s fault.
It would be wrong to say that Team Sky are cheats. They have engaged in practices that many consider to be unethical but they y have not been found d guilty of anything that hat contravenes the laws of the sport. The white cloak oak they donned when they began their grand tour in self-regard, though, is now stained and ragged.
Because the truth is that Team Sky have come to embody the absolute opposite of the idea upon which they were founded. They have come to appear as the world’s best at beating the system, clinging pathetically to the wreckage of their principles as they sweep all before them. W What a sham all that garbage a about marginal gains see seems now. What a joke. Itp It people duped a but lot of i t bright was n nothing more than camouflage for cynicism and opportuni ism. Team Sky’s story is measured out in a sa sad trail of excuses and dissemblances. Whe When we needed to see the team doctor’s computer, we were told it had been stolen. When we wanted to discover what was in the Jiffy bag that was taken to Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine, we were told nobody knew. When we wanted to question the team doctor, we were told he was too sick to give evidence.
When we found out that a delivery of testosterone patches had been made to the Manchester Velodrome, we were t ol d t hey had been dispatched in error.
So spare us the lectures about asthma. Spare us the sanctimony. And admit that Team Sky has become one of the most curious contradictions in sport: a winning team that is a giant embarrassment. Once, Team Sky and Froome staked out their positions on the moral high ground but now they skulk amid the shadows in the valleys.
My hope is still that Froome is not the ‘slithering reptile’ that Cath Wiggins, Sir Bradley’s wife, says he is. My hope is that Team Sky will not tie themselves in even more knots as they try to make this go away. My hope is that this will not drag on for month after tedious month.
I won’t be holding my breath, though. Well, not unless Sir Dave can get me some medication to suck on first.