JIFFY BAG DOCTOR ADMITS: WE DID NOT KEEP RECORDS
MPs find holes in Team Sky medic’s evidence
THE doctor at the centre of the Sir Bradley Wiggins jiffy bag controversy has made the astonishing admission that there was not a ‘written medicines management policy or stock-taking system’ at either Team Sky or British Cycling in 2011.
Richard Freeman, who is still British Cycling’s doctor, also contradicts earlier claims by insisting that the use of the powerful corticosteroid that was given to Wiggins before he won the 2012 Tour de France was with the knowledge of Team Sky management and coaches.
Freeman has revealed this in written evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in a bid to explain why he has been unable to produce proof of what was in the medical package delivered to the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine for Wiggins.
Freeman said it was a legal decongestant called Fluimucil, although UK Anti-Doping are investigating an allegation that the jiffy bag contained the cortico-steroid triamcinolone. He now says that he regrets not keeping detailed medical records.
At a parliamentary hearing earlier this month — which Freeman did not attend, citing ill-health — UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead said there was no evidence to support his claim because he had not followed Team Sky protocols of downloading medical records on Dropbox file-sharing software and had then had his laptop stolen while on holiday in 2014.
It prompted committee chairman Damian Collins MP to declare that the ‘credibility of Team Sky and British Cycling’ are ‘in tatters’.
But Freeman’s responses to the select committee now raise further questions for Team Sky and British Cycling, and in particular for former clinical director Dr Steve Peters and team principal Sir Dave Brailsford.
In 2011 medicine for both Team Sky and the GB cycling team was stored at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, with Team Sky also so far unable to properly account for the use of large quantities of triamcinolone and a mystery delivery of testosterone patches. Peters has said the patches were delivered in error by a medical supplier.
Freeman, who worked in a dual role for Team Sky and British Cycling between 2009 and 2015, told the committee his responses were limited by doctor-patient confidentiality. But he admitted that in 2011 a proper record system was not in place, blaming the issue on the sheer workload for the medical staff across the two teams.
‘In 2011 neither team had a written medicines management policy or stock-taking system,’ writes Freeman. ‘In early 2012 Dr Peters and I introduced a basic stock-control review of the medicines that were ordered for British Cycling. The present system of medical record-keeping and medicines management is a huge improvement on what existed in 2011.
‘I accept it would have been desirable to have backed up my clinical records. I regret not doing this.’
At stage races, Freeman complained that he found the workload ‘daunting’, adding that it was difficult to know how much stock of medicines to carry.
But his version of events with regard to ordering the jiffy bag appears inconsistent with evidence previously submitted to the select committee.
According to expenses documents submitted by British Cycling, Simon Cope, then a British Cycling coach who now runs TeamWiggins, collected the package in Manchester on June 8 before flying to France for the last stage of the Dauphine on June 12.
Freeman writes: ‘My request made to (technical director) Shane Sutton a day or two before the end of the Dauphine 2011.’ He added: ‘Only Fluimucil was contained in the package sent.’
He also said he had ‘only ever personally administered triamcinolone to one rider at Team Sky and British Cycling’. Presumably he means Wiggins.
‘In the last seven years I’m aware of only a handful of riders in either team being referred to hospital for image-guided triamcinolone injection for clinical need, with none needing a TUE,’ he writes.
‘Coaches and performance directors were involved in the process. Use of triamcinolone is very infrequent in these teams but my obligation to doctorpatient confidentiality does not allow me to explain further.’
Freeman also insisted his ‘practice has never been compromised by coaches or management at Team Sky or British Cycling’. He added: ‘I have never encountered a winningat-all-costs attitude in these organisations.’
However, Collins plans to submit further questions to Freeman. ‘It is incredible to see there was no proper policy for record-keeping or stock-taking, and seemingly no one responsible for making sure what rules were enforced,’ he said yesterday. ‘The evidence about triamcinolone being administered says coaches and performance directors were involved in the process, which Shane Sutton said he didn’t know anything about.
‘From Dr Freeman’s evidence it seems quite clear that the riders and coaches would have been well aware of the medication and very odd if they were not, so that does cast some doubt over the position of Shane Sutton saying he was not aware of medications, including triamcinolone.’
Sutton told the committee in December that Freeman had told him Wiggins had been ‘sorted’ on June 12, which Sutton took to mean that the drug in the package had been administered.
Collins added: ‘If Wiggins was so ill during competition why was he not treated sooner? What was it that he was “sorted” for? No one has explained what it was.’
What was it Wiggins was ‘sorted’ for at Dauphine?