Sir Dave Brailsford has conceded his handling of the complex affair of the Jiffy bag delivered to Team Sky at the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné had made the affair “a damn sight worse than it needs to be”. However he has maintained his stance that the therapeutic use exemptions which meant Bradley Wiggins could have injections of the corticosteroid triamcinolone before three major stage races gives him no cause for concern.
Wiggins, Brailsford and Team Sky have been criticised over the TUEs, although the injections to treat what the rider has described as severe pollen allergies and asthma were approved at the time by the governing body, the UCI, meaning that no rules were broken. The UCI has, however, tightened up its procedures since then, with a three-man panel ruling on applications, and it has changed their medical chief.
In an extended interview with the Telegraph cycling podcast, Brailsford looked at the circumstances around the delivery of the Jiffy bag to Team Sky by the then Great Britain women’s coach Simon Cope, containing what was described as “a medical substance”.
However, the Team Sky principal did not say precisely what was in the package, despite being pressed on the issue several times by the journalists Richard Moore and Lionel Birnie.
Brailsford said that his initial assertion that Cope had gone to the Alps to meet the Great Britain rider Emma Pooley had been an inadvertent mistake. “I shouldn’t have been so hasty in sharing that. I should have waited until the picture was complete rather than contradict myself. I’ve thrown petrol on the fire.”
He added that he had asked UK Anti‑Doping to open an inquiry into the package. “I can find no wrong doing … [no] anti-doping rule violation, [no] prohibited substances,” he said. “I can’t see any of that from what I’ve got. We not hiding anything wrong here. I welcome the intervention of Ukad … they can get to the bottom of it and establish the truth.”
Defending Wiggins over his TUEs, Brailsford reiterated several times that he had placed his faith in Team Sky’s medical staff and would defer to their superior knowledge.
Asked about the dates when the TUEs were issued – shortly before each of the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France and 2013 Giro d’Italia – he stated “there isn’t a systematic pattern of TUE abuse” and that a greater number of TUEs and “more of a coherent pattern” would arouse suspicion.
The Team Sky head said he was certain Team Sky riders had not used triamcinolone out of competition to lose weight – “No. Absolutely not. For me that would be over the line …” – and added his riders had not used either corticosteroids, the painkiller tramadol, or thyroid hormone stimulants to enhance performance, even within the rules.
“I have no knowledge whatsoever in any way, shape or form of us systematically using any of those and if I did, I’d stop it,” he said. “It’s not what we’re about.”
In the future, Brailsford added, it was likely Team Sky would be more open over TUEs, moving towards making some of them public. He said the team might get “independent experts” to review their activities “from top to bottom … [so] that we achieve the ethical standards we are trying to achieve”.
