Team Sky Jiffy Bag doctor to face General Medical Council tribunal

Richard Freeman, the former British Cycling and Team Sky doctor, looks set  to face a General Council probe over the delivery of testosterone patches to the National Cycling Centre in Manchester.

Existence of the patches came to light as part of the UK Anti-doping (UKAD) investigation into the contents of a Jiffy Bag delivered to Freeman at the Criterium du Dauphiné in 2011 and containing medicines for Bradley Wiggins

Freeman told Steve Peters, then head of medicine at British Cycling and Team Sky, that the testosterone patches had been delivered in error by supplier Fit 4 Sport, which is based in Oldham but earlier this year it emerged that they may have been ordered specifically.

Now, the Sunday Telegraph reports that the GMC has informed British Cycling that Freeman is likely to be the subject of a tribunal in connection with the episode, which happened in 201.

The tribunal could result in Freeman, who resigned from his role with the governing body a year ago, citing ill-health, being suspended from practising medicine or even been struck off.

The doctor has always insisted he did nothing wrong and that the testosterone patches were returned to Fit 4 Sport, which no longer works with British Cycling.

But in February last year he failed to appear before a House of Commons select committee investigating doping in sport, including the Jiffy Bag episode, saying he was too unwell to attend.

In November of the same year UKAD announced that it had closed its investigation into British Cycling and Team Sky in respect of the Jiffy Bag and Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE) issued for Wiggins and signed off by Freeman.

The agency said it had been unable to establish the contents of the Jiffy Bag and was highly critical of the lack of record-keeping by Freeman, adding that while it was unable to establish wrongdoing, it would pass information onto the GMC.

Meanwhile the report of the House of Commons Select Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, published in March, recommended that the GMC “should investigate Dr Freeman for his failings, and, if he is found to have breached their rules, take appropriate action against him.”

Freeman has denied doing anything wrong and maintains that the testosterone patches, which were sent back to Fit 4 Sports, were not meant for riders.

A spokesman for British Cycling commented: “British Cycling referred concerns in relation to Dr Richard Freeman’s fitness to practise to the General Medical Council and we continue to support its ongoing investigation, in which we are co-complainants.”