‘BRADLEY’S WINS ARE GREAT, BUT HOW DID HE DO IT?’
YORKSHIRE won the right to host the 2019 Road World Championships and at the official announcement, cups of local ale were raised in celebration. But amid the jubilation, the crisis currently facing British cycling was unavoidable.
Event organisers Welcome To Yorkshire did their best to concentrate attention on the county, handing out pork pies and wheels of cheese from nearby farm shops.
There was reason to be buoyant at the prospect of hosting the biggest cycling event in Britain since the Tour de France Grand Depart was here in 2014. Competition from Canada, Italy, Colombia and Germany was seen off, crowning another victory for Britain in the world of cycling.
But the questions over Team Sky and Sir Bradley Wiggins have become so serious in recent days that doubts were being openly expressed about our greatest winners.
Yorkshireman Brian Robinson, the first Briton to win a Tour de France stage in 1958, suggested Wiggins may have ‘overstepped the line’ of acceptable practice in search of his own triumphs.
‘It will never go away. Anybody does something fantastic and straight away you think drugs,’ said Robinson, ‘We’ve overstepped that line by taking painkillers. In my day some people did pretty big drugs but it’s not sophisticated like it is now.
‘ Bradley’s achievements are fantastic but how did he do it? Those questions will always be there.’
Yorkshire’s bid was compiled along with British Cycling and UK Sport. The championship is cycling’s showcase event and £15million of the £27m budget will be fed back into the sport at grassroots level. But while Gary Verity, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, celebrated, the top brass at British Cycling stayed away.
Chief executive Ian Drake pulled out at late notice citing a ‘prior engagement’, leaving vice-chairman Charlie Jackson to address the furore surrounding the sport.
one issue on the agenda was Sportsmail’s revelation that Simon Cope, who was working for British Cycling in 2011, flew from Manchester to Geneva with a mystery medical package to deliver to Richard Freeman, a doctor at the Team Sky. Cope admitted to not asking what was in the Jiffy bag.
Asked whether he was worried about Cope’s lack of curiosity, Jackson replied: ‘It’s an ongoing investigation so I can’t comment on that.’
He also denied the UK Anti-Doping investigation would damage the credibility of cycling, saying: ‘Two million more people a year are cycling, that’s all the credibility you need. People can make their own opinions.’
Speaking via video link from Doha, Brian Cookson, president of cycling’s world governing body, was unmoved by the crisis, instead focusing on Yorkshire’s win. He said: ‘Hopefully this announcement will focus some positive attention back on our sport.’