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Mar 2018
3:55pm, 2 Mar 2018
12,296 posts
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Chrisull
He also broke the Lizzie Armistead missing doping tests and won an award for it. Have you read the article I posted above, even with a neutral eye, Sky do not look honest in it.
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Mar 2018
4:00pm, 2 Mar 2018
37,878 posts
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Velociraptor
Just as a random medical practitioner, I find it horrifying that Dr Freeman neither kept good records nor kept the device holding those records even a little bit secure, and that the GMC doesn't seem to be setting fire to him. If it was the likes of me, my medical registration would be toast by now.
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Mar 2018
4:15pm, 2 Mar 2018
4,048 posts
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larkim
I did read it Chris, but I can't get past the journalistic style which leaves so many obvious lines of enquiry unanswered. There's so much speculation, references to "leading figures in the sport" but then no quotes, hyperbole and then just re-hashing of old stuff that it reeks of a story being pushed out when they've really struggled to get anything other than a chinese whisper as evidence.
I could be wrong, but that's just my reading of it.
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Mar 2018
4:21pm, 2 Mar 2018
12,297 posts
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Chrisull
And I'm actually not sure about the "storm in a teacup" bit.
It wasn't and isn't. Sky tried to pass it off as flumucil, a drug freely available in France. We all know that is not true now. They used the courier Simon Cope - manager of the national women's team but tried to make out he was visiting Emma Pooley when she was actually in another country.
The article states that it was pretty much given it was triamcinolone in the package (you can accept that or not, but it seems good circumstantial evidence and it would tie in with everything else we know). It is legal with a relevant TUE. But:
1) Sky lied about it (and lied about Simon Cope's role in it - see https://inews.co.uk/sport/cycling/bradley-wiggins-team-sky-mystery-jiffy-bag-explained/).
2) The regular use of TUEs before big events is a highly questionable moral grey area (Yates brothers I am looking you, and your nickname "the TUE twins") that a lot of teams and cyclists indulge in.
3) Most seriously, Lawton seems to be alleging that no TUE was obtained for the jiffy bag episode. The TUEs were actually revealed by the Fancy bears hack. Hence the need for secrecy. If it was discovered a) it was triamcinolone and b) there was no TUE for it, it
would lead to a retrospective ban from 2011 into 2012 possibly taking into account the Olympics and Tour de France win.
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Mar 2018
4:25pm, 2 Mar 2018
12,298 posts
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Chrisull
And if this is wild speculation and hyperbole, then remember where David Walsh started with Lance Armstrong - and I seem to remember arguing here on Fetch against doubters on the Lance Armstrong one as well...
For all his other faults, Lawton's route to disillusionment with Wiggins in his article seems very similar to mine with Wiggins.
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Mar 2018
4:38pm, 2 Mar 2018
4,049 posts
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larkim
Nowhere was it found that what was in the package was anything other than flumicil. Though I'd agree that Sky failed to prove that it was flumicil too. Speculation that it was triamcinolone is entirely that - speculation.
I strongly disagree about the use of TUEs insofar as all the evidence we have seen from athletes across various spectrums is that TUE use is actually quite rare. I don't know if we've seen data from the Yates brothers, but (stretching this out a bit) two individuals for whom TUE use was pointed at over a number of years was Farah and Rupp. Both of whom had FB leaks of their data, and both of whos TUEs disclosed matched entirely with the few that they'd said publicly they'd had. And that ties in a subset of the NOP's published statements about how few TUEs they use.
Now what's missing of course is transparency, and that means its easy to say "XYZ uses loads of TUEs" and if they choose not to be public about TUE use they lose the ability to stop the rumours / allegations.
The fly in the ointment of my own position of course is Wiggins and the triamcinolone. His case does seem to suggest that he was allowed a TUE on less robust information and practice than the system is set up for, but in all of the other cases of TUE use that I've seen, the need was 100% genuine, the duration of the TUE was short term and the purpose was entirely to resolve a newly arisen health concern.
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Mar 2018
4:54pm, 2 Mar 2018
12,299 posts
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Chrisull
It's occam's razor surely though. Fluimucil is available in pharmacies for $8 in France. Why courier it over with someone far to be important as a flunkey courier (unless he just happened to be coming over to France anyway)? Why lose / misplace all the evidence to demonstrate that? You have to make assumptions that Sky somehow didn't know Fluimucil was available in France. You have to assume that Cope intended to see Pooley but didn't know she was in Spain racing at the time. You'd have to assume that a team based around science and marginal gains couldn't keep receipts.
It is more likely that it was a substance in the package that required careful management and discretion. UKAD (Nicole Sapstead) say there is no record of Sky purchasing fluimucil. They say there is a record of them purchasing triamcinolone at the same time. This is not a huge assumption to make. Wiggins is a known user of triamcinolone. Wiggins said he never injected, but then when confronted with the evidence had to admit he did. So him lying isn't a big issue either. There are simply less assumptions to make this way.
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Mar 2018
5:03pm, 2 Mar 2018
4,053 posts
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larkim
You can cut that both ways. Try telling Alain Baxter that just picking up an over the counter remedy where you are is better than having it delivered by someone from your team!
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Mar 2018
5:07pm, 2 Mar 2018
816 posts
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SailorSteve
Whilst this all still looks, sounds and reeks of duck to me that is an excellent riposte Larkim👏👏👏
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Mar 2018
5:08pm, 2 Mar 2018
63,357 posts
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Gobi
I am all sky and groomed out
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Cheating in amateur sports
Apr 2017
