He said he told Team Sky a record of all the medicines the riders took on races should be kept and referenced during the next race. He believes this was not done.
Having departed Team Sky in 2012 after his doping during his US Postal days became clear, Michael Barry has now said he questioned the British squad’s use of medicines while still one of its riders.
The Canadian former pro, now aged 41 years and preparing to publish a book, gave an extensive interview in The Sunday Telegraph in Britain yesterday.
He said while he did not believe Team Sky crossed the line when it came to doping, he questioned the medical ethics of some of the things it did.
However, he believed the questions he was now raising were not just for Team Sky but for cycling generally.
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Barry raced for US Postal from 2002 to 2006 and says when he left he stopped doping. He would ride for Team Sky between 2010 and 2012.
His comments come at a bad time for Team Sky as the controversy around Bradley Wiggins TUEs during his time with the squad had been dissipating and as a parliamentary committee in the UK is preparing a report on ethics in the team.
The delivery of a jiffy bag to the team in France in 2011, which it has said contained a legal over-the-counter decongestant for Wiggins will be address in that report, due shortly.
“What this has highlighted is not just a ‘doping’ issue. It is a health issue,” he said of the recent controversies.
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“Taking care of athletes should be a team’s priority. Instead everyone involved has a ‘bias’; from the mechanics to the team directeurs – everybody’s jobs are reliant on the athletes’ performances.
“So priorities are skewed, and people will do whatever they can to gain an edge, whether pharmaceutical or technological. But this wasn’t just a problem at Sky. It’s a problem for the sport in general.”
Specifically on his time with Team Sky, he said he was concerned at the use of the pain killer Tramadol and sleeping pills and said he had raised this with the team.
He also said he raised the idea of keeping a record of all the medicines ingested by riders at races so it could be passed on to the doctor working on the next events.
Those comments are important because the apparent lack of records around the jiffy bag taken from the UK to France to the team in 2011 is a major issue for its credibility at present.
“I asked if one doctor would ever give the pill [Tramadol] to a patient under similar circumstances in an office setting. He said no,” writes Barry in his new book, some extracts of which were published by the Telegraph.
“I asked if he was concerned about what would happen if a rider crashed and it was found he had a drug in his body which normally came with a warning that it should not be consumed while operating a vehicle. He was silent.
“I asked how he would feel if insurance wouldn’t cover a rider who had crashed with the drug in his system. He was silent.
“I asked how he would feel if that rider died. Silence, again. I suggested that the team should maintain an inventory of the drugs given out at each race and pass it along to the doctor at the next race. To my knowledge, that was never done.”
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