Team Sky doctors 'tried to thwart Wiggins TUE use'

Team Sky doctors tried to prevent Dr Richard Freeman, the British Cycling medical official who worked with Sir Bradley Wiggins, from administering a fourth dose of a TUE allergy drug.

According to David Walsh of the Sunday Times, the doctors changed the team’s access password to the TUE application website of the World Anti-Doping Agency, without telling Freeman.

Freeman wanted the new password three days before the Tour of Britain in 2013, but was refused it.

The Sunday Times claims sources have said up to 60 to 70 40mg vials of triamcinolone were bought by British Cycling in 2011. Each of Wiggins’s TUEs accounted for only one vial

Earlier we reported how Sir Dave Brailsford has said that he was among the staff members that Team Sky doctor Dr Richard Freeman treated with the corticosteroid Triamcinolone. The team has been attempting to explain why it and British Cycling stored what UK Anti-Doping has described as an “excessive amount” of the drug for one person.

The chief executive of UK Anti-Doping (Ukad), Nicole Sapstead, this week told MPs that from records relating to Triamcinolone seen by her organisation, more of the drug was ordered than was needed for the therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) administered to Sir Bradley Wiggins.

While those TUEs were secured in accordance with UCI rules, Team Sky has come in for criticism as Triamcinolone has previously been used by drugs cheats.

Dr Prentice Steffen, of the rival Cannondale-Drapac squad, said that he could recall using the drug only three times in a 10-year period.

“I think this has to be looked at with the greater context in view – the three suspicious TUEs that Brad Wiggins was granted just before the three Grand Tours. If they had more than one dose [available], within the context of what they gave Brad for his pollen allergy, I think it’s a bit flimsy.”