It’s fair to say that it’s not been a great few weeks for Team Sky. The British outfit have faced a barrage of criticism since the Fancy Bears leak revealed details about Bradley Wiggins’ controversial TUE history last month, while the Daily Mail’s subsequent report about a mysterious package being delivered to the team bus at the end of the 2011 Dauphiné Libéré has only served to add more fuel to the growing fire of suspicion.
Over the weekend, general manager Dave Brailsford tried to tackle the mounting backlash in an exclusive interview with the Cycling Podcast that lasted nearly 90 minutes, but his answers to the various questions posed by Richard Moore and Lionel Birnie were disappointing to say the least.
Whenever I’ve heard Brailsford speak over the years, I’ve always got the impression that he could have made a fairly decent politician had he not gone into the world of sport. He’s a man who’s seemingly incapable of giving a straight answer, loves hiding behind rhetoric and lengthy anecdotes and is constantly trying to steer the narrative in his favour. A lot of the time, his tactics seem to work, but on this occasion it’s hard to see how even the most diehard of Sky fans could come away satisfied with what they heard.
Instead of setting the record straight as he claimed was his intention, Brailsford’s response to any tough line of questioning was simply to say that he trusted the team’s medical staff or to suggest that “there’s definitely a debate to be had” before launching into a stream of platitudes. He was willing to admit on several occasions that he way he had handled the PR storm over recent weeks had merely made things “a damn sight worse”, but when it came to actually addressing the details of the controversy, he offered little in the way of fresh material and came across as excruciatingly evasive.
The finest example of this behaviour came when he was asked whether Sky would still have applied for the corticosteroid TUEs Wiggins was granted before the 2011 and 2012 Tour France – the latter which he won – and the 2013 Giro d’Italia had there been a rule that riders on the medication were forced to sit out two weeks of competition. In other words, did he really need it?
“Well, I see what you mean. So basically what you’re saying if there’s a rule that you’re not allowed to use it, would he have sat out? Well, I’d defer to the specialists and the medics and I’d take their advice – as we do on a regular basis – and let them give their expert opinion of the right way to address the situation or whatever symptoms or medication was required. To be frank, I trust the guys on the team. We’ve got a great medical team and they’re constantly refining their processes and procedures and they have a conference call every other Monday night. They all get together and go through everything. They look at each individual rider but they also look at their practice, and the medical practice and how they practise and our code and policies are very, very important. They’ve got their general medical council. It’s a highly regulated profession as we all know and you adhere to the rules of that profession or you don’t. And that sits over and above the team, and then within the team we’ve got our own policies that then also transcend their behaviour really. So for me, you either trust the people that are working for you and take their advice and, as experts, take what they’ve got to say, or you don’t. And if you start questioning people’s advice and say, ‘Actually, I know you might be a medical expert but actually I think I know best here,’ then that’s a challenge. Now what I would caveat that with is that there is, as you mentioned earlier, currently now there’s a public perception around TUES, so I do think there’s another element that’s becoming part of the decision-making process. If there’s a medical need or medical requirement for something, then there’s the openness and transparency that more and more people want to see. And I think this openness and transparency now is becoming such an important angle in sport that actually it’s becoming part of the decision-making process in terms of whether you actually grant TUEs or use certain medication, and that’s certainly becoming a bigger issue, for sure. That’s why the whole of WADA are reviewing their TUEs and how they’re operating. We’ll be reviewing our TUEs and how we operate with TUEs going forward, that’s for sure, and I’m sure the UCI will be doing the same.”
Complete and utter waffle.
Looking at the UCI’s anti-doping regulations, the following criteria must be filled in order for a TUE to be granted:
a. The prohibited substance or prohibited method in question is needed to treat an acute or chronic medical condition, such that the Rider would experience a significant impairment to health if the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method were to be withheld.
b. The therapeutic use of the prohibited substance or prohibited method is highly unlikely to produce any additional enhancement of performance beyond what might be anticipated by a return to the rider’s normal state of health following the treatment of the acute or chronic medical condition.
c. There is no reasonable therapeutic alternative to the use of the prohibited substance or prohibited method.
d. The necessity for the use of the prohibited substance or prohibited method is not a consequence, wholly or in part, of the prior use (without a TUE) of a substance or method which was prohibited at the time of such use.
Essentially, if the injections weren’t necessary then one could argue that Sky had effectively cheated the system in the name of “marginal gains”.
The injections of triamcinolone acetate Wiggins received to treat his asthma and grass pollen allergies are widely considered to have powerful performance-enhancing effects and, according to the likes of Jorge Jaksche, David Millar and Michael Rasmussen, have been frequently abused by riders in the past. Not only that, but they can also potentially cause some dangerous side-effects and, as such, are normally only ever prescribed as a last resort. In essence, a rider would have to be extremely sick and certainly not in the grand tour-winning condition to have a legitimate argument for needing them.
Before 2011, Wiggins had been able to manage his asthma using standard inhalers. He secured a fourth-place finish at the 2009 Tour de France while riding for Garmin-Slipstream, but his first Tour with Sky the following year saw him drop down to a disappointing 24th – eight places behind now-retired teammate Thomas Lovkvist.
To argue that particular performance had any influence on how his respiratory problems were subsequently treated is merely speculative at this point, but the question remains: if the milder drugs were good enough with Garmin, why he did he need to change to a potent steroid with performance-enhancing effects – especially just before three major grand tours?
Wiggins’ claimed during last month’s interview with Andrew Marr that his breathing had been off in the lead-up to those races, yet he wrote in his 2012 autobiography, My Time, that he had gone into that year’s Tour in the form of his life and in good health. He had also won the Dauphiné in both 2011 and 2012 by over a minute and even stated in the book that he had “never had an injection”, apart from when he had been given vaccinations or put on a drip due to dehydration. If he believed that what he was doing was all above board and in no way shady, why then feel the need to lie?
Unfortunately, neither Moore nor Birnie pushed Brailsford for a more concise answer on whether Wiggins would have avoided taking triamcinolone had it meant missing the Tour, but they did go on to question the timing of the TUE applications. Once again, the response left a lot to be desired.
“Yeah, I get that. I think you can see why people would go down that route and argue that, but there’s also quite a long time between them. We’re talking about three years here and we’re also taking about an entire career. Let’s not forget Bradley won the 2012 Tour, he crashed out of 2011 and didn’t do so well ultimately in the 2013 Giro, but he also won a lot of other bike races in his career. There isn’t a systematic pattern of TUE abuse and I think if that’s what people are suggesting was the case here, I would’ve suspected that there would have been a greater number of TUEs rather than less so. I think there would have been more and a quite coherent pattern across the whole career of an individual that was the reason for their level of performance, which quite frankly there’s not in my opinion. Bradley Wiggins is an amazing guy, an amazing athlete and he’s achieve incredible results in his career, and I think we can see quite clearly that’s not been done off the back of TUEs.”
It almost makes you want to scream, doesn’t it? Clearly no one is arguing that TUE abuse is the foundation for Wiggins’ success, but what people want to know is why he only used triamcinolone on those three specific occasions rather than throughout his career – when the likes of salbutamol had otherwise been perfectly adequate. Moreover, if I cheat on one question out of 100 in a maths test, I’ve still cheated, have I not? Even if I pass the test with flying colours, I’m pretty certain the examiner wouldn’t simply overlook my transgression, regardless of whether I’d previously been a model student.
Later during the interview, Brailsford had the opportunity to put to bed the questions about the package that then British Cycling employee Simon Cope delivered by hand to Dr Richard Freeman of Team Sky on the last day of the 2011 Dauphiné. The Daily Mail’s report earlier this month alleged that Wiggins had a consultation with Freeman on the team bus following the final stage in La Toussuire, but Brailsford initially claimed when story broke that there was no way the meeting could have taken place as the bus had left before Wiggins had completed his podium obligations. Furthermore, he also stated that Cope, who was a women’s cycling coach with British Cycling at the time, had actually been at the French ski resort to visit Emma Pooley. Pooley, however, was racing in Spain on that day, while video evidence has since emerged that shows Wiggins being interviewed outside the bus after the stage.
British Cycling have since informed the Daily Mail that the package contained a medical substance but also added that it did not contain triamcinolone – an important detail given that the TUE application was not filed until later that month. Had the package actually contained that medication, it may suggest that Sky had already made up their minds about Wiggins’ treatment before had even seen a specialist. Cope, meanwhile, has told Cyclingnews.com that he didn’t know what was in the box (now said to have been a jiffy bag) and that it was intended for Freeman, not Wiggins. His interview followed UK anti-doping’s announcement that it was investigating the matter, as well as allegations by former Sky rider Jonathan Tiernan-Locke that he was “freely offered” tramadol by Freeman before riding for Britain at the 2012 World Championships.
Of course, it’s odd enough that a British cycling employee would make the trip all the way out to the Dauphiné for a day simply to deliver a jiffy bag, but more bizarre is why Brailsford would so readily reach for glaringly inaccurate alibis if there was nothing to hide? The Cycling Podcast interview presented him with the chance to clear some of the suspicion surrounding his behaviour, but instead he only made things worse, refusing several times to disclose what was in the package despite admitting that he was told of his contents. He also put forward a strange O.J. Simpson-like defence at one point, suggesting that he would have constructed a less flimsy cover up had there actually been any wrongdoing. If ever was a lesson in how not to manage a PR crisis, this was it.
Ultimately, while it would be foolish to assume that what Sky are accused of is unique within the pro peloton, there’s no doubt that their actions over recent weeks have made it incredibly easy for their critics to question them. It’s been made perfectly clear by this stage that there’s no easy solution to solving the TUE debate, but that discussion has been increasingly overshadowed by the team’s shambolic response to scrutiny. More to the point, when they first entered the sport in 2010, they set their own high standards by promising to uphold transparency and do things the right way. In Brailsford’s own words, “the whole point of our team is to try and demonstrate that it is possible to cycle clean and compete at the highest level”. If that remains the team’s ultimate goal, surely he could just tell what was in the package? Furthermore, if they really wanted to be the standard-bearers for a new era of cycling, why not join the Movement For Credible Cycling (MPCC)? Brailsford told the Cycling Podcast that Sky were opposed to the fact that teams within the organisation could still sign riders who had served six-month bans, but there was nothing stopping them maintaining their zero-tolerance policy had they been a member. Really, it sounds more like he was concerned about his riders not being on a level playing field with the whole peloton.
As his work demonstrates, Brailsford clearly isn’t stupid. He’s a meticulous planner who’s proved on countless occasions that he knows the formula for success, yet how could someone who otherwise pays such close attention to detail across the board allege that he didn’t know cortisone is performance-enhancing? This after all is a man who holds a sports science degree and was supposedly given a detailed lowdown of the sport’s doping culture by David Millar following his arrest in 2004. Quite frankly, it beggars belief that he could claim ignorance when his team’s approach is widely considered to be one of the most scrupulous in professional sport.
The only explanation is can deduce at this stage is that Brailsford thinks you and I are idiots, and this isn’t the first occasion he’s given off that impression either. The hiring of disgraced doctor Geert Leinders back in 2011 was at the very least a colossal oversight given that just a quick Google search would have revealed details about his doping links, yet the whole affair was merely brushed off as an honest mistake. Much like this current TUE controversy, it’s hard to fathom how it was allowed to happen unless the team’s desire for transparency was trumped by their competitive edge.
I obviously can’t tell you whether Sky genuinely have broken any rules or operated in grey areas which blur the ethical lines on doping, that’s for you to decide on your own, but it’s certainly difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt at this point when they continually fail to provide answers to straightforward questions.
Maybe Brailsford will eventually tell us what was in the package and more, but the longer this affair drags on the worse it’s going to look for Sky’s integrity.
The Gruppetto 