Team Sky and British Cycling in firing line after records fail to clear doubts over Sir Bradley Wiggins’s 2011 Criterium du Dauphine win
Team Sky and British Cycling are unable to provide documentary evidence of their assertion that a mystery package sent for Sir Bradley Wiggins at a 2011 race contained a legal medicine, MPs heard yesterday.
UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) chief Nicole Sapstead, whose organisation has spent 1,000 man-hours investigating claims of wrongdoing in the sport, said that, contrary to guidelines, medical records were not kept up to date.
Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford in December rebuffed allegations that the package contained a banned steroid, telling the Culture, Media and Sport select committee that the contents had been decongestant Fluimucil.
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But Sapstead told the committee that had not been verified because Team Sky and British Cycling’s Dr Richard Freeman had failed to update a shared database and later reported his laptop stolen.
“We are not able to confirm or refute that it contained Fluimucil. We have asked for inventories and medical records and we have not been able to ascertain that because there are no records,” she said.
Sapstead said Dr Freeman kept medical records on his laptop but was also obliged by Team Sky policy to share them with colleagues.
UKAD chief Nicole Sapstead said it was "odd" that Team Sky failed to update records (Source: Getty)
He did not in this instance and in 2014 reported his laptop had been stolen while on holiday in Greece. Dr Freeman had been due to give evidence yesterday but missed the hearing, citing ill health.
She added: “It strikes me as odd, too, particularly for a road racing team set up to prove races could be won clean. I think it’s strange they haven’t kept records to prove that.”
Former British Cycling coach Simon Cope told the committee he did not ask the contents of the jiffy bag that he couriered from their Manchester headquarters to the finish of the Criterium de Dauphine in France, which Wiggins won.