Injections, flare-ups and vital questions that still dog Wiggins
Aspokesman for sir Bradley Wiggins last week suggested he might be prepared to sit down with one or two journalists to explain why he required three injections of a powerful asthma drug just days before his last three Grand Tours. By yesterday, however, that invitation had been withdrawn.
It was argued enough has already been said in a statement issued on the 2012 Tour de France winner’s behalf. It pointed out the triamcinolone injections he received were ‘fully approved by the sport’s governing bodies’. and they were. Indeed, on all three occasions Wiggins was granted a Therapeutic Use exemption (TUe) by the International Cycling Union. But on BBC Sportsweek yesterday, one of the world’s leading experts in asthma in sport, someone who assists elite British athletes in asthma management and applying for exemptions, clarified why so many questions remain for Wiggins.
‘at the moment athletes can use inhaled forms of asthma medication, so your brown inhalers and blue inhalers, that you don’t actually need a TUe for,’ said Dr John Dickinson, head of the respiratory clinic at the University of kent.
‘so they shouldn’t need to apply for one. The TUe is there for exceptional cases where during their competition they need to apply for one. so in the cases where they’ve applied to use a corticosteroid (like triamcinolone) there has been a flare-up in their asthma. If we can properly control the issue there is no reason to do that.’
Triamcinolone has long been abused by cyclists because it aids weight loss. David millar, a former rider who has confessed to using banned substances during his career, said it was the most ‘potent’ drug he knew.
asked if elite athletes might invent an illness to obtain an exemption and use a prohibited substance, Dr Dickinson said: ‘The rules allow for that grey zone and for that one per cent of athletes who get the help of a doctor to look at the system, look at the individual’s health status and say, “We can get you that drug because you’ve got this condition and we can apply for a TUe”.’
There is no suggestion that Wiggins has broken any anti-doping rules and he has medical records to demonstrate a history of asthma and allergy problems.
But flare-ups? There might be a reference to an illness before the 2011 Tour but a year later when he won, there is no mention that he was suffering with the acute symptoms that would persuade a doctor to upgrade an asthma patient’s treatment from inhaler to injection.
Wiggins’ June 2012 exemption form tells its own story. In the medical notes submitted as part of the application and revealed by the Russia-based Fancy Bears hackers last week, it says: ‘The surgeon recommends repeating the treatment this year which I’d like to do when he returns from the Dauphine.’
If there was a flare-up, a reason why Wiggins suddenly needed triamcinolone, that was presumably before or during the Dauphine Libere stage race between June 5 and June 12, 2012.
That Wiggins won the race, the Tour de France warm-up suggests he was not acutely ill. sources at Team sky have told
Sportsmail they have no memory of Wiggins being unwell.
In Wiggins’ statement on saturday it was said that the Team sky doctor oversaw his exemption application, which points to Richard Freeman, then of Team sky and now of British Cycling and the all-conquering GB track cycling squad at the olympics. Freeman (below) would not return the calls of the Sunday
Times journalist David Walsh last week, despite a relationship dating back to the time Walsh spent with Team sky to write a book in 2013 about the their Tour de France success. efforts have been made to distance Wiggins from Dr Geert Leinders, who worked alongside Freeman in the Team sky medical team in 2011 and 2012. Leinders was banned for life by the Us anti-Doping agency last year amid allegations that he falsified medical forms to obtain TUes for corticosteroids like triamcinolone.
In the statement issued on behalf of Wiggins it was said that ‘Brad has no direct link to Geert Leinders’.
‘Leinders was “on race” doctor for Team sky for a short period and so was occasionally present at races dealing with injuries sustained while racing such as colds, bruises etc,’ continued the statement. ‘Leinders had no part in Brad’s TUe application.’
and yet in Walsh’s 2013 book, Inside Team sky, the then head of Team sky’s medical department, sports psychiatrist Dr steve peters, gave an account of when he granted permission for a rider to apply for a TUe. ‘It was Geert who rang me afterwards to tell me I was wrong,’ said peters, suggesting Leinders was involved in rather more than bumps and bruises during races.
TheRe is no suggestion that Freeman or the other doctors at Team sky have done anything wrong, nor the specialists consulted by Team sky in presenting their case for an exemption for Wiggins.
But there have been examples of doctors like Leinders who are prepared to assist athletes in breaking the rules, Lance armstrong’s michele Ferrari and Us postal’s Luis Garcia del moral being two high-profile examples.
so far the explanations given on behalf of Wiggins are painfully weak. he has failed to explain why he has not needed triamcinolone since 2013 when he stopped riding Grand Tours and focused instead on winning the world time trial title, setting a new hour record and securing a fifth olympic gold medal.
If Wiggins will not explain himself, cycling chiefs need to launch a full inquiry given the damage that is once again being inflicted on the sport’s credibility.