EMAIL BACKS UP ACCUSATIONS AGAINST CYCLING DOC

AN email at the centre of the British Cycling and Team Sky testosterone scandal has been published by the BBC. The email confirms there was a fivemonth gap between the arrival of the banned substance at the British Cycling and Team Sky headquarters in Manchester and the team doctor obtaining a note stating it had been delivered in error. Richard Freeman, the doctor involved in the Team Sky Jiffy Bag controversy, is due to appear at a medical tribunal in Manchester next month to respond to allegations from the General Medical Council, a number of which were first reported by Sportsmail.

As the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service confirmed this week, it is alleged that in May 2011 Freeman ‘ordered for delivery from Fit4Sport Limited to the Manchester Velodrome 30 sachets of Testogel’. It is further alleged that Freeman ordered the Testogel ‘to administer to an athlete to improve their athletic performance’ and made ‘untrue statements and communications’ with Fit4Sport ‘to conceal his motive for placing the order’. Detailed in the allegations, and confirmed by the BBC yesterday, is the fact that it was not until October 2011 that an email was sent by Fit4Sport stating that the Testogel had been sent in error. At the hearing it will be alleged that Freeman ‘contacted an individual at Fit4Sport Limited requesting written confirmation that the order had been sent in error, returned and would be destroyed by Fit4Sport Limited, knowing that this had not taken place’. The email published last night by the BBC states that the member of staff at Fit4Sport could ‘confirm that I have now received back the Testogel 50mg pack of 30 sachets which we sent in error to you’. In March 2017 Team Sky’s then medical director and psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters made no mention of the five-month delay when he attempted to explain the circumstances surrounding the delivery of Testosterone to the Sunday Times. Peters was quoted saying: ‘I was with a colleague when the order arrived and it was immediately brought to our attention. Dr Freeman, who was responsible for ordering medical supplies, explained that the order had never been placed and so must have been sent in error. He contacted the supplier by phone the same day and they confirmed this. That confirmation arrived and was shown to me by Dr Freeman.’