WADA: UK had to use our lab

BRITISH sport’s drug busters have been placed under formal investigation by the World AntiDoping Agency, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The dramatic development follows a lengthy investigation by this newspaper into events before London 2012 when UK Anti-Doping effectively let British Cycling conduct their own private probe (including urine testing) following an abnormal test by a rider.

The move will send shockwaves around global sport as WADA are most commonly perceived to delve into the affairs only of ‘rogue’ antidoping organisations such as Russia’s RUSADA, which was notoriously central to that country’s state-sponsored doping and cover-ups.

As the policing body for clean sport in the United Kingdom,

UKAD should conduct any in-depth investigations, but in 2011 they let British Cycling try to track down a potential doper themselves. That came after a high profile British cyclist was drug-tested out of competition in late 2010 and their urine was found to contain an unusual amount of nandrolone, a banned steroid.

A group of British riders were then tested to rule out any innocent explanations. No findings were ever made public; indeed the whole episode was kept secret until now.

UKAD themselves admit they have ‘no record’ of what happened after one of their officials greenlighted the British Cycling private testing.

The specific failings UKAD will now be quizzed on by WADA are twofold.

Firstly, that WADA’s code compels UKAD, not a sport’s governing body, to do such investigations.

Secondly, that the follow-up urine testing was carried out in a nonWADA laboratory and that UKAD didn’t even see the results.

‘We have asked our independent Intelligence and Investigations Department to look into this matter further and to contact UKAD to seek further information,’ a WADA spokesman told The Mail on Sunday on Friday night.

‘Under Article 20.5.6 of the 2009 World Anti-Doping Code, National Anti-Doping Organisations had an obligation to vigorously pursue all potential anti-doping rule violations within their jurisdiction, including investigating whether athlete support personnel or other persons may have been involved in a case of doping.

The senior management team at British Cycling at the time involved in the secret testing were a quartet comprising performance director Dave Brailsford, head of medical Steve Peters, doctor Richard Freeman and the head coach, Shane Sutton. Freeman, the former chief doctor to British Cycling and Team Sky, was struck off the medical register in Britain this month.