DOPING CHIEFS HIT VELODROME AGAIN
THE probe into British Cycling intensified this week when UK Anti-Doping investigators paid another visit to their HQ. The inquiry concerns the Team Sky medical package which was couriered to France for Sir Bradley Wiggins in June 2011. Dr Richard Freeman, then Team Sky doctor and now the head of medicine at British Cycling, was among those at Manchester’s National Cycling Centre until after midnight on Wednesday. In a further twist yesterday, British Cycling chairman Bob Howden resigned less than three weeks after Ian Drake quit as chief executive — though both deny their decisions are linked to the UKAD investigation or the review into allegations of sexism and bullying by senior officials.
INVESTIGATORS for UK Anti-Doping made another visit to the headquarters of British Cycling this week as the crisis at the governing body deepened.
Yesterday Bob Howden resigned as chairman less than three weeks after Ian Drake quit as chief executive, and although both men deny that their decisions are linked to the UKAD investigation into a Team Sky medical package or an independent review into allegations of sexism and bullying, the timing suggests otherwise.
Howden stood down a matter of hours after British Cycling officials had to open their doors yet again to UKAD investigators gathering evidence as part of their inquiry into the package ordered by Team Sky and delivered to France for Sir Bradley Wiggins in June 2011.
Sportsmail understands Dr Richard Freeman, then Team Sky doctor and now the head of medicine at British Cycling, was among those at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester until after midnight on Wednesday.
UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead is due to report on the investigation to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee on February 22. On the same day Freeman will face questions from MPs about the contents of the package that British Cycling have so far been unable to verify with documentary evidence.
Simon Cope, the former British Cycling coach and now the boss of Team Wiggins, who personally delivered the medical package to La Toussuire in the French Alps, is expected to appear before the committee on March 1.
In December, Howden was left damaged by the intense questioning of the parliamentary committee examining the issue of doping in sport, although yesterday he insisted that also had no bearing on his decision to stand down as chairman. Howden will remain as president of British Cycling, but, typically in an organisation seemingly stumbling from one disaster to the next, the appointment of Jonathan Browning as the new chairman was immediately being questioned.
In the official release yesterday British Cycling omitted the fact that, as well as being a former chairman of Vauxhall and managing director of Jaguar Cars, Browning also spent three years as CEO of Volkswagen’s US operations at a time when ‘cheat’ devices were being fitted to their diesel vehicles to falsify emissions readings.
It was in September 2015 that the US authorities alleged that some 480,000 vehicles sold between 2009 and 2015 had an emissionscompliance‘ defeat device’ installed. And last month VW negotiated a £3.5billion settlement with US regulators, with another £15bn set aside for issues with some 11million vehicles worldwide. Browning was VW’s US CEO between 2010 and 2013, eventually resigning for personal reasons, but yesterday he was asked if his link with the scandal-hit car firm made him the right man to lead British Cycling.
The 57-year-old, an independent member of the British Cycling board for two years, denied any knowledge of the emissions scandal.
He said: ‘I joined Volkswagen US in 2010 — after the engines that were part of the emissions scandal were already in the market, and I left in December 2013 before data emerged. I had no involvement in the emissions scandal.’
He was then asked, as a consequence of that answer, if he could be expected to be better informed on any integrity issues that might arise at British Cycling.
‘The role of chairman is important in setting the tone of the organisation, we are making sure that we have the right governance in place,’ he said. ‘That is something that will continue to evolve and it is our intention that we have the highest standards of governance and the right level of transparency.’
Howden insisted his departure was not linked to the independent investigation into the culture of British Cycling’s World Class Performance Programme.
The review, commissioned by UK Sport and British Cycling last year after the departure of former technical director Shane Sutton, has been completed but publication has been delayed — probably until next month — because of legal issues over what can and cannot be published in the final report.
Insiders who have seen one draft have described it as ‘damning’, despite the fact that the programme delivered unrivalled success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio last summer.