Dave Brailsford with journalist David Walsh on the 2013 Tour de France. Walsh has been put under pressure live on air over the tone of his coverage of the team (Photo: Pete Goding)
Journalist David Walsh, who has previously robustly defended Team Sky, has said he would never have spent time with the team – a total of 13 weeks in 2013 – had he known about the TUEs Bradley Wiggins had availed of.
“I didn’t know about the TUEs, how was I meant to know about them?” he told broadcaster Ger Gilroy on ‘Off The Ball’ on Newstalk (see below).
The Sunday Times journalist had previously publicly declared Team Sky beyond reproach after spending time with the squad.
Walsh’s public declaration that he believed the team was clean was seen as unwise by many as The Sunday Teams and Sky are both part of the Murdoch media empire.
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Put under pressure by the questioning in Newstalk; he also denied he “went to bat” for Team Sky with his branding of the team as clean in his columns and in writing a book on the team and its marginal gains methodology.
He pointed out he had recently written that Brailsford must leave Team Sky for it to regain credibility.
He still believed in Chris Froome and said while Geert Leinders was involved in doping at Rabobank he believed he was clean during his time at Team Sky.
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He added he would write a book with Froome again if a proposition arose and did not see an issue with working “as a contractor”, as the interviewer put it, in writing a book for a rider he was also covering in his newspaper.
Froome’s book published last year, The Climb, was written by Walsh.
The Irish journalist said he thought Shane Sutton was “really poor and looked out of his depth” at the UK parliamentary hearing in London earlier this week.
And while much of what Sutton said was saying was “truthful”, according to Walsh, he lacked credibility.
“I thought Dave Brailsford came across as more plausible but I didn’t think he was convincing,” Walsh added.
“People might laugh at this but I think if you exclude the Wiggins-Freeman-Sutton-Brailsford shenanigans in 2011, 2012, 2013; I think there’s a lot about Team Sky that’s actually admirable.
“And on the whole doping question there’s a lot of people in Team Sky who really do believe in clean cycling.”
Have a listen to the interview below.
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