Jiffy bag doctor in the dock
Freeman ordered testosterone for athlete to boost performance, tribunal will hear
THE former doctor of Team Sky and British Cycling faces a four-week misconduct tribunal next month that will centre on the explosive allegation he ordered testosterone gel for an athlete to boost their performance.
It has been revealed the inquiry into Dr Richard Freeman, who was at the heart of the Jiffy bag scandal, will cover 11 different accusations, including that he ordered 30 sachets of a testosterone gel to the Manchester Velodrome in 2011 — an allegation first reported by Sportsmail.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) have said the hearing, which begins on February 6 and could last until March 5, will move on to claims that his motive for ordering the testosterone was to ‘ administer [it] to an athlete to improve their athletic performance’.
Other key allegations concerning a situation that occurred 14 months before the golden summer of 2012 include that he gave ‘untrue statements’ to UK AntiDoping about the alleged order from Fit4Sport Limited to the home of British Cycling and Team Sky; that he ‘failed to maintain an adequate record management system’; and that he failed to ensure records on his laptop, which he claims was stolen in August 2014, could be retrieved.
The purpose of the tribunal from the point of view of the MPTS is to determine whether Dr Freeman is fit to practise. Yet the outcome could spark the biggest crisis yet for British Cycling and Team Sky, as it has the potential to destroy credibility in both.
Leading figures at the organisations are bracing themselves for the fallout, and have warned athletes of the possible collateral damage.
Dr Freeman became a controversial figure within cycling after it emerged he gave Sir Bradley Wiggins the corticosteroid triamcinolone under therapeutic use exemption before his 2012 Tour de France win.
He was then at the centre of the Jiffy bag scandal, revealed by
Sportsmail in 2016, concerning the delivery of a mystery package to Wiggins’s team at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. He has since resigned from his roles at Team Sky and British Cycling.
It is understood Dr Freeman told the General Medical Council the testosterone patches were ordered for management staff, not athletes. Former clinical director Dr Steve Peters told the
Sunday Times in 2017 the patches were delivered in error by a medical supplier.
The tribunal at the GMC’s headquarters in Manchester will mark a rare public appearance in recent times for Dr Freeman.
He pulled out of giving evidence in support of former British team cyclist Jess Varnish at her landmark employment tribunal last December, and did not appear at the parliamentary inquiry into the Jiffy bag scandal, nor the internal probe at British Cycling.
Details of the hearing were published by MPTS yesterday. They say the tribunal will ‘inquire into the allegation that, on 16 May 2011, Freeman ordered from Fit4Sport to the Manchester Velodrome 30 sachets of Testogel... and that at the time of the order, Testogel was (and remains) on the World Anti-Doping Agency list of prohibited substances’.
Regarding the alleged order, the statement claims that Freeman ‘made untrue statements, in that he denied making the order and advised that it had been made in error’.
The statement then goes on to claim that Freeman ‘contacted an individual at Fit4Sport requesting written confirmation that the order had been sent in error, returned and would be destroyed by Fit4Sport, knowing that this had not taken place... and that Freeman showed the email to others knowing that its content was untrue’.
The MPTS statement concludes: ‘It is alleged that Freeman’s conduct was dishonest... and that his motive for placing the order was to obtain Testogel to administer to an athlete to improve their athletic performance. It is further alleged that Freeman’s motive for his actions... was to conceal his motive for placing the order.’
A British Cycling spokesman said: ‘British Cycling suspended Dr Richard Freeman in March 2017 and subsequently initiated an investigation into his conduct as an employee of the federation.
‘British Cycling requested that Dr Freeman be interviewed as part of the investigation. However, he declined to make himself available for interview, citing grounds of ill health.
‘In September 2017, he resigned from British Cycling.
‘British Cycling has raised concerns relating to Dr Freeman’s fitness to practise with the General Medical Council and has continued to support the GMC’s investigation, in which the federation is a co-referrer.’