The inquiry has concluded Team Sky and Bradley Wiggins used corticosteroids to enhance performance, not treat illness. It seriously criticises Dave Brailsford's role at the team.
Team Sky used medicines to enhance performance, finds inquiry
The final report of a UK parliamentary inquiry which deals with some of the recent controversies around Team Sky says the squad used medicines to enhance performance and not only to treat medical issues.
The report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee was published in the early hours of Monday morning.
Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky have strongly defended themselves and denied the report's findings.
"I find it so sad that accusations can be made, where people can be accused of things they have never done which are then regarded as facts," Wiggins said.
"I strongly refute the claim that any drug was used without medical need. I hope to have my say in the next few days and put my side across."
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The report's findings represent perhaps the most damaging crisis to face the team. That is despite 18 months of serious controversies over TUEs, a jiffy bag delivered to the squad and Chris Froome’s as yet unexplained salbutamol Vuelta adverse dope test result.
The committee concludes the team’s former star rider Bradley Wiggins used corticosteroids to prepare for the Tour de France.
And it also finds the team abandoned its claimed ethos of “winning clean”, insisting Dave Brailsford must take responsibility for that.
In a damning finding for Brailsford personally, it reaches conclusions that are contrary to his evidence meaning his testimony was not believed.
The committee said it seemed implausible to some people that an over the counter decongestant was in a jiffy bag delivered to the team in France in 2011.
And it states other testimony presented to it claimed corticosteroid triamcinolone was in the bag. However, that is not proven.
“From the evidence that has been received by the committee, we believe that this powerful corticosteroid (triamcinolone) was being used to prepare Bradley Wiggins, and possibly other riders supporting him, for the Tour de France,” the report says.
“The purpose of this was not to treat medical need, but to improve his power-to-weight ratio ahead of the race.
“The application for the TUE for the triamcinolone for Bradley Wiggins, ahead of the 2012 Tour de France, also meant that he benefited from the performance-enhancing properties of this drug during the race.
“This does not constitute a violation of the World Anti-Doping Agency code, but it does cross the ethical line that David Brailsford says he himself drew for Team Sky.
“In this case, and contrary to the testimony of David Brailsford in front of the committee, we believe that drugs were being used by Team Sky, within the Wada rules, to enhance the performance of riders, and not just to treat medical need.”
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Formerly of British Cycling and Team Sky, Shane Sutton gave evidence in public to the committee.
However, the report says he also wrote to the committee and told it "what Brad was doing was unethical but not against the rules".
A UK Anti Doping Agency inquiry closed last year into the jiffy bag delivered to the team at the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné.
It concluded no doping violation had been found. But it was also unable to determine what was in the bag as no medical records were available to support Team Sky claims it was a simple, and legal, decongestant.
But the committee report goes much further than the anti doping probe did.
“To many people, the whole story of the package seems implausible, to say the least,” the committee’s report says.
“Further information shown to the committee claimed that the product that was requested to be sent out to the event was triamcinolone.”
It also questioned why a product available in chemists in France was flown from the UK by British Cycling employee Simon Cope. The committee also questions the plausibility of the time line set out by Team Sky.
"If the package was needed urgently, why, according to travel records given to the Committee by British Cycling, did Simon Cope collect it from Manchester on 8th June, but not fly out with it until 12th June?” it asks.
“If the package did indeed contain Fluimucil, why was someone asked to bring it out from Manchester, when one of the pharmacies where Team Sky had previously sourced this same drug was just a few hours' drive away in Switzerland, at the Pharmacie De La Plaine, in Yverdon.”
Team Sky’s Dr Richard Freeman did not answer committee questions; he said on legal advice.
And the team claimed a laptop with the medical records of Bradley Wiggins was stolen in Greece in 2014. There were no backup records made.
"Team Sky's statements that coaches and team managers are largely unaware of the methods used by the medical staff to prepare pro-cyclists for major races seem incredible and inconsistent with their original aim of ‘winning clean’ and maintaining the highest ethical standards within their sport," the committee comments.
“How can David Brailsford ensure that his team is performing to his requirements if he does not know and cannot tell what drugs the doctors are giving the riders?” the new report ponders.
“David Brailsford must take responsibility for these failures, the regime under which Team Sky riders trained and competed and the damaging scepticism about the legitimacy of his team’s performance and accomplishments.
“Despite the fact that it was Team Sky policy for medical records of riders to be uploaded to a shared Dropbox cloud computing storage site, this was never done.
“Nor, in the three years from 2011 to 2014, did anyone at Team Sky check this, and insist that the records were uploaded.
“This is even more lacking in credibility given that these were not just the records for a junior rider, but those of the lead cyclist in the team.”
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