Team Sky’s approach to drugs “not ethical” says former rider Michael Barry

Retired professional cyclist Michael Barry believes Team Sky were “not ethical” in terms of administering medication to riders when he was with them. While he does not think the team was engaged in doping, he says that it did fall into a “grey area,” as do other teams because of the pressure to get results.

Barry, aged 41, announced his retirement from professional cycling in September 2012. The following month, he was banned for six months by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after testifying in its investigation of doping at the United States Postal Service (USPS) team.

He admitted doping while riding with the team from 2002 to 2006. While his spell there coincided with four of Armstrong’s seven Tour de France wins, Barry only made his debut in the race in 2010 after joining Team Sky.

Speaking to Telegraph Sport, Barry said he had raised concerns with Team Sky’s management about younger riders being given sleeping pills by medical staff as well as the controversial pain-killer Tramadol, which is not banned.

He said: “The thing with doping is that there is a black and a white,” he says. ‘Did the team cross into the black? No, in my opinion. They didn’t dope, but there is a grey area. The use of painkillers falls into that grey area. Tramadol falls into that grey area.

“I loved my time with the team, I had a great experience there. But, ethically, I really started questioning the use of the Tramadol, and the sleeping pills, especially when you see the younger riders using this stuff heavily. If we went into a medical clinic and just asked their GP, they probably wouldn’t give these out. And that is not ethical.”

Barry first claimed he had used Tramadol, which can cause drowsiness and is blamed for crashes within the peloton, when racing with Team Sky in an interview with The Times in April 2014.

> Team Sky says its riders are not given painkiller Tramadol and it should be banned

At the time, Sky said that the drug had not been given to members of the team “for the past two seasons” (ie from 2012 onwards) and that it believed it should be banned.

Barry told Telegraph Sport that a passage in his 2014 book, Shadows On The Road, about a conversation with a doctor but which made no reference to the team in question was in fact about Sky. In his book, he wrote:

I asked if one doctor would ever give the pill [Tramadol] to a patient under similar circumstances in an office setting. He said no. I asked if he was concerned about what would happen if a rider crashed and it was found he had a drug in his body which normally came with a warning that it should not be consumed while operating a vehicle. He was silent.

I asked how he would feel if insurance wouldn’t cover a rider who had crashed with the drug in his system. He was silent. I asked how he would feel if that rider died. Silence, again. I suggested that the team should maintain an inventory of the drugs given out at each race and pass it along to the doctor at the next race. To my knowledge, that was never done.

His revelation comes at a time when Team Sky are the subject of a UK Anti-Doping probe with past and present staff including Sir Dave Brailsford also called to testify before the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport.

In December, Brailsford told MPs that a Jiffy Bag couriered out to former Sky doctor Richard Freeman at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphiné contained the decongestant Fluimucil, which is not banned, for use by Sir Bradley Wiggins.

Many remain unconvinced by his explanation, and the select committee has invited Freeman and Simon Cope – the then British Cycling employee who delivered the package – to appear before it.

> Former Team Sky doctor and Sir Bradley Wiggins Jiffy Bag courier summoned to testify before MPs

Barry said that while he was unable to comment on what the Jiffy Bag might have contained, he was surprised at the episode.

“They should have been clearer about it, so I’m not surprised by the scrutiny. But the team is big. There is a lot of stuff going on, and I wasn’t at the race.

“The riders have personal relationships with the doctors and the management. I didn’t know what other guys were ingesting and what they weren’t, or what treatments they were getting. By that stage of my career, I had decided to race on my own terms.”

Barry also told Telegraph Sport that he believed that ethical issues were not confined to Team Sky and were a reflection of the way the sport operates.

“What this has highlighted is not just a ‘doping’ issue,” he said. “It is a health issue. Taking care of athletes should be a team’s priority.

“Instead everyone involved has a ‘bias’, from the mechanics to the team directeurs – everybody’s jobs are reliant on the athletes’ performances, so priorities are skewed, and people will do whatever they can to gain an edge, whether pharmaceutical or technological.

“But this wasn’t just a problem at Sky,” he added. “It’s a problem for the sport in general.”