The head of the anti doping committee Damien Collins MP says the evidence so far leaves Team Sky and British Cycling in "a terrible position", with "selective memory" a feature of the evidence.
The MP leading the British department of culture, media and sports anti-doping committee inquiring into Team Sky and British Cycling has expressed his frustration at the level of information both organisations have supplied to it.
Damien Collins MP believed the inability of both to furnish written records of what was in a big delivered to Team Sky in France in 2011 and on medicines taken by riders over a period of time appeared damning.
"I think this leaves them in a terrible position,” he said of Team Sky and British Cycling.
Collins made his comments to the media after a hearing of the committee today heard from UK Anti Doping chief executive Nicole Sapstead who confirmed the lack of record keeping by both Team Sky and British Cycling.
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“I think British Cycling should be keeping records of drugs they are supplying,” continued Collins to the media after the hearing.
“It's very confused as to what drugs are being used by Team Sky and British Cycling. The impression that's given is that (Team Sky’s medic) Dr Freeman is just ordering drugs at will with no records being kept of what he's doing."
While the committee is examining the delivery of a jiffy bag to Team Sky at the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné which the team says contains a legal decongestant Fluimucil, the inquiry has been broadened.
It has been widened to examine the general culture around medicines being administered to rides in Team Sky and British Cycling.
Team Sky says the 2011 bag was brought to the race in France by British Cycling coach Simon Cope. They say it was delivered to then Team Sky doctor Dr Freeman so that Bradley Wiggins could use it as a decongestant to break up mucus.
Wiggins had won the Critérium du Dauphiné that day. Both he and Dr Freeman have told UK Anti Doping that Wiggins used the Fluimucil in a nebuliser the day it was delivered.
He would have broken no rules in doing that because the decongestant is not banned and never has been.
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But Sapstead told the committee today that Dr Freeman had not kept a record of the delivery of the substance or Wiggins using it. She added British Cycling – from whose stores in the UK Cope is said to have collected the Fluimucil – had no record of ever having bought the substance.
Dr Freeman’s laptop had later been reported stolen, in 2014. And British Cycling, she said, had no policy of record keeping in the area if administering medicines.
Unsurprisingly, Collins was not impressed with what he heard today; a hearing Dr Freeman pulled out of yesterday because he said he was too ill to attend.
Crux of the matter for credibility
"First of all, it's absolutely damning that there are no records," Collins said.
"How can you run a clean team or a clean sport when you don't know what the doctor is giving the cyclists? That's at the heart of this.
“I think that the credibility of the Fluimucil story has been undermined by the fact that there are no records.
“Not only are there no records of Fluimucil being supplied on that race, they can't provide any records of it ever being supplied by British Cycling to Team Sky.
“That undermines the credibility of that story. There's a lot of selective memory here," Collins said.
"I can't say whether he remembers or not, but we have Simon Cope remembering that it was a post-it note on the package when he picked it up, but he can't remember what day he was in Manchester (to collect the Fluimucil). That lacks credibility.
"The question at the heart of this is, how can you say that British Cycling is the cleanest and most ethical in the world when there aren't records of what's been given to one of our leading cyclists.
“How is it that it's got to this state? The existence of this package is something that may never have come out.
"Then there's the question: If we've got this package which is unusual - it's being couriered out not to be administered not to just any rider but to Bradley Wiggins - and it's been ordered by the team doctor from British Cycling, why isn't there any records? Why does no one know what was in this package?
"There are no medical records of what they had administered or what the doctor ordered. Therefore, people rightly say: 'How can we have confidence in doping rules and medication rules being properly enforced, if there aren't any records?'"
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