A former team mate of Shane Sutton has disputed a claim by the former Australian pro cyclist - and former lead coaching and management figure at Team Sky and British Cycling - that he had no knowledge of drugs in cycling.
Kvetoslav Palov, a former Czech pro who was a team mate
of Sutton’s at ANC-Halfords in the 1980s, has given evidence at a General
Medical Council hearing into the fitness to practice of Dr Richard Freeman, a
former doctor with Team Sky and British Cycling.
Freeman has admitted he ordered a testosterone product that was delivered to the National Cycling Centre in Manchester in 2011. In total he has admitted to 18 of the General Medical Council's 22 charges.
However, he has strenuously and repeatedly denied the most serious allegation; that he ordered the product for the purposes of doping athletes.
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Freeman claims Sutton bullied him into ordering the product so he could treat his, Shane Sutton’s, erectile dysfunction.
Sutton denies the claims, including that he suffers from erectile problems. He has said Freeman is not reliable and has continually changed his version of accounts.
Palov claims he felt the need to come forward after Sutton told a UK parliamentary hearing, which in 2016 examined doping in sport, that he had no knowledge of drugs during his career in any capacity and at any time, either as a rider or coach.
Palov claimed that in 1987 it was rumoured Sutton had been given drugs worth £10,000 - referencing the Tour de France that year, which Sutton abandoned on stage 13.
Palov said “it was a bit of a standing joke at ANC-Halfords in 1987 that Angus Fraser let it drop he’d spent over £10,000 on ‘treatment’ for Shane through the Tour”. Fraser was a soigneur with the team in the 1980s.
Palov accepted he had heard the same "rumour" about that as others had. Some discrepancies also emerged in Palov’s evidence.
He made a statement saying he and Sutton used a toilet in a McDonalds in Edinburgh during the 1987 Tour of Britain with “syringes all over the place from bike riders”.
He gave the 2016 parliamentary committee the same evidence but his testimony did not feature in the committee's final report.
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Simon Jackson QC, the counsel for the General Medical Council, said those claims relating to the syringes in the McDonalds were “misleading” as there was no evidence Palov and Sutton used the toilet in Edinburgh in 1987 together.
He also pointed out McDonald’s only opened its first branch in Scotland two months after the 1987 Tour of Britain and that first branch was in Dundee, and not in Edinburgh.
“Shane said he had no knowledge of drugs in sport,” Palov said. “Given I was a witness to drugs in the Tour de France, syringes in the toilet, it’s a bit hard to say that.
“Anyone claiming he was a professional cyclist and never
saw anyone taking drugs is lying,” the former Czech pro cyclist added.
“Anyone who has been in and around pro cycling for so long and isn’t aware of anyone taking drugs is absolutely lying,” he claimed, giving his evidence via video link from Australia where he now lives.
He added there were “rumours going around that quite a lot of money had been spent on keeping Shane” in the 1987 Tour de France. However, he accepted those were "rumours" he had heard at that time.
However, when pressed on his evidence about the syringes
in the toilet, Palov claimed he had asked his statement be changed a little
when it came to that incident.
He said he did not actually use the toilet with Sutton though Sutton “may” have been there around the same time. When questioned, Palov said the toilets may have been in another fast food restaurant, and not a McDonalds.
But he said anyone who used the toilet could not make the claim they knew nothing about drugs in cycling and he said both he and Sutton used the toilets.
In other evidence the General Medical Council heard, the father of former Olympic champion Nicole Cooke – Tony Cooke – said he had in 2013 gone to UK Anti Doping with claims that suggested alleged drug use by Sutton years earlier.
He claims he went to UKAD and told it he knew of a former
team mate of Sutton’s who wanted to go on the record about Sutton using drugs
and to give some other, anecdotal, evidence around that claim.
But Tony Cooke, who gave his evidence on Monday, claimed UKAD did not act in a way that he felt was sufficient. However, Cooke was unable to furnish any direct evidence that alleged Sutton had used drugs.
The hearing continues.
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