Following a week in which they faced fresh questions over testosterone patches, Team Sky and British Cycling are now braced for the publication on Monday of a report by MPs who have been investigating doping allegations.
The Telegraph reports that it is unclear whether the two-year Combating Doping in Sport parliamentary inquiry carried out by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee will address the testosterone patches.
It will however address the infamous Jiffy bag delivered to Sir Bradley Wiggins at the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné which was the subject of a 14-month investigation by UK Anti-Doping that came to a close when the organisation was unable to identify its contents. Wiggins’ use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) ahead of major goals will also have come under scrutiny, as will the medical record-keeping of British Cycling and Team Sky.
Earlier this week it was reported that a General Medical Council (GMC) investigation may have uncovered evidence that banned testosterone patches said to have been delivered in error were in fact ordered from the National Cycling Centre in Manchester.
Sportsmail reports that the medical supplier, Fit 4 Sport, is insisting it complied with requests from the GMC and UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) despite previous reports that it had not cooperated.
“We have been asked by the GMC not to comment on the current investigation, like we were told not to comment on the UKAD investigation in 2017,” said a statement from the company. “We have fully co-operated with both UKAD and GMC.”
Responding to the recent developments, former British Cycling president Tony Doyle called for further changes at the governing body.
“We were promised a complete shake-up and it just hasn't happened. Yes, there is a new chief executive, a new chairman and a new performance director, but the president remains the same and so does the board.
“We should be enjoying success at this weekend's world track championships, but we've got more revelations and on Monday we've a parliamentary report into doping that I'm sure is going to be critical.”
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Headline story on BBC R4 this morning? Sir Bradley Wiggins didn't break the rules. Literally the first item, even before the Oscars, with in-depth reporting.
Still no mention of the NICE report saying that cycling is the silver bullet for modern diseases though.
So another 'investigation' at great expense that comes down to 'possibly', 'may' and 'suspected'.
If they really are the cheating drug factory that has been suggested then you'd think there would be a single piece of actual evidence. Also, the finger is pointed solely at Team Sky at a time when Wiggins was representing GB and BC as well, why?
Jesus I can't believe people as naive as you still exist. Also, why would the UK Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, commissioned to investigate the goings on at Team Sky, point the finger at anyone else?
Not a positive report, it transpires...http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/43280081 , and http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/43281807
Ther Guardian's take on the matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/mar/05/bradley-wiggins-and-team-s...
I don't care about any of this anymore...move along.. move along. Next please...
Posting that you don't care is so incredibly ironic that either you are a master of the art or of less intelligence than the average tory.
Ironic that your average Tory is better schooled than the opposition who mostly went to Grange Hill. Look at Angela Rayner.....NO qualifications. I know who I'd put money on if they did University Challenge.
Better schooled? I think you mean 'more expensively schooled'. If someone had to have vast sums of daddy's cash spent on them in order to get them through school with more than a GCSE in woodwork, is that really a marker of innate intelligence?
And I don't see much sign of practical benefit when I look at David Cameron's performance as PM or Johnson's as foreign secretary.
I note an ultra-expensive education didn't stop the latter pissing away all that money on a fatuous failed bridge.
I don't think 'intelligence' is the issue either way, mind you - I'm not even 100% sure there is any such trait, or if there is that it has that much effect in the real world (which isn't Universtity bloody Challenge!). it's a matter of incentives - everyone has it in them to become stupid to the degree that it benefits them to do so. We can all rise to that particular challenge if it's in our interests.
Hopefully, the report will be a thoroughly investigated, factual document. Unlike anything Matt Lawton has published in the Daily Mail which is speculative and full of "maybe" and "might" statements based on information from so called reliable sources and chosen experts.
I never thought Brailsford was the Messiah, and I don't believe he is the devil now.
In the UK, we tend to build people up, then tear them down. We're in the tearing down phase. The fact that the Mail and the Telegraph appear to be the main moral arbiters here makes me sick.
He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!
***HOT TAKE ALERT***
I'm thinking Dave Brailsford is not a particularly honest person.
"MPs’ report on doping to be published on Monday"
Having seen Prime Ministers Questions, I reckon most of them are totally smashed.
Watched a bit of ' Icarus' hard to believe any sport is clean now.
Haven't yet seen Icarus but I don't get where people who follow cycling (can't call them cycling fans) get this zealous obsessiveness and false idea of clean.
Just like every other sport cycling has never been nor ever will be clean. Playing or interpreting/streching the rules is as much a part of the the racing as the racing itself.
It's so juvenile and infantile to think any more of the sport. To think it is fair is to tell you're a passive recipient of dopermine who craves a binary response.