Shock probe into UK’s own ‘drugs busters’
BRITISH sport’s drug busters have been placed under formal investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency, The Mail on
Sunday can reveal.
The dramatic development follows a lengthy investigation by this newspaper into events before London 2012 when UK Anti-Doping effectively let British Cycling conduct their own private probe (including urine testing) following an abnormal test by a rider.
The move will send shockwaves around global sport as WADA are most commonly perceived to delve into the affairs only of ‘rogue’ anti-doping organisations such as Russia’s RUSADA, which was notoriously central to their state-sponsored doping and cover-ups programme.
As the policing body for clean sport in the United Kingdom, UKAD should conduct any in-depth investigations themselves, but in 2011 they let British Cycling try to track down a potential doper themselves.
This came after a British cyclist was drug tested out of competition and their urine was found to contain an unusual amount of nandrolone, a banned steroid. A group of British riders were then tested to rule out innocent explanations. No findings were made public; indeed
the whole episode was kept secret until now. UKAD themselves admit they have ‘no record’ of what happened after one of their officials green-lighted the British Cycling private testing.
The specific failings UKAD will now be quizzed on by WADA are twofold: that WADA’s Code compels UKAD, not a governing body, to do such investigations and that urine testing was done in a non-WADA lab and UKAD didn’t even see the results.
‘We have asked our independent Intelligence and Investigations Department to look into this matter further and to contact UKAD to seek further information,’ a WADA spokesman told The Mail on Sunday.
‘Under Article 20.5.6 of the 2009 World Anti-Doping Code, National Anti-Doping Organizations had an obligation to vigorously pursue all potential Anti-Doping Rule Violations within their jurisdiction, including investigating whether athlete support personnel or other persons may have been involved in a case of doping. The elements that you have provided are of significant concern to WADA.’
On the specific aspect of UKAD allowing British Cycling to test urine for nandrolone, the WADA spokesman said: ‘The rules related to the specific activities of
National Governing Bodies (NGBs) are a matter for UKAD.
‘However, all such NGBs are under the umbrella of the relevant signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code and therefore bound by its terms. Article 6.1 of the Code states that for the purposes of establishing the presence of a prohibited substance, samples will be analysed only in WADA-accredited laboratories.
‘Any allegation that an NGB may be testing their athletes in private, in a non-accredited lab, for the purposes of screening for a prohibited substance should be investigated thoroughly.’
The senior management team at BC at the time involved in the secret testing were a quartet comprising performance director Dave Brailsford, head of medical Steve Peters, the BC doctor Richard Freeman and the head coach, Shane Sutton.
Freeman, the former chief doctor to British Cycling and Team Sky, was struck off the medical register this month after a two-year hearing process at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal, which concluded that his fitness to practise was impaired.
The Mail on Sunday team asked British Cycling a detailed set of questions, including why it went no further when contamination and naturally occurring nandrolone had been ruled out.
A spokesman said: ‘None of the people relevant to your enquiry now work for British Cycling and this makes it difficult to check any of the information you have sent.’