JUST A JIFFY…
While
browsing in one of London’s temples to cycling excellence – Rapha’s cool
cycling shop in the West End – I pondered is this as good it gets? I don’t mean their coffee, which is excellent.
Neither do I mean the smart range of clothing which is very expensive – imagine
crashing and writing off such costly kit?
No, it’s the
future of the sport I worry about. More
specifically it is the damage done and being done by the Team Sky TUEs and
mystery package stories under scrutiny by government and UK anti-doping.
All those
wonderful performances by British riders these past 16 years have attracted
some two million newcomers to the sport. Now these allegations of “possible
wrong doing” have put cycling’s reputation on the line.
On Monday,
at the Parliamentary committee enquiry, there came a chance to clear the air.
But the
explanations provided by our sport’s big wigs failed to satisfy and they found
themselves sinking deeper into the mire.
After 10 weeks
of prevarication and two hours of cross examination by the Parliament culture,
media and sport select committee, they finally got the answer as to what precisely
was in that jiffy bag.
Suddenly,
after a lot of stonewalling, Team Sky boss Sir David Brailsford spilt the
beans. It was revealed in a jiffy - if
you like!
The contents
of the infamous jiffy bag flown out to Team Sky with coach Simon Cope at the
2011 Criterium du Dauphine was apparently nothing more terrible than a legal
medication called Fluimcil, which is used to rid the airways of mucus. It was
for Sir Bradley Wiggins’ use.
And we are
all asking ourselves, well, OK, why didn’t you say so before all this shit was
kicked up?
They
couldn’t, it was claimed, because of medical confidentiality. What?
Or, as the
comedian Tony Hancock would be heard to cry when he couldn’t quite believe his
ears, “Oh, dear, OH DEAR, oh dearie me.”
After several
years of unprecedented success by British cyclists amassing those few dozen gleaming
Olympic gold medals, plus the crème de la crème, that historic first Tour
victory by a British rider courtesy of Wiggins in 2012, followed by three more
Tour victories to revelation Chris Froome, cycling is in the spot light as
distinct from the limelight. Cycling is in the dog house.
The Jiffy
bag story came about following a Daily Mail allegation a few months ago revealing
that a package was delivered to Team Sky in France in June, 2011 and it was
claimed that the team official carrying it didn’t know what was in it.
That set
tongues wagging. Would you or I accept being asked to carry something through
customs if we didn’t know the contents?
That story
poured fuel onto the fire already raging over earlier story of Sir Bradley
Wiggins’ legal use of a banned steroid in 2011, 2012 and in 2013.
Eyebrows at
UK Anti-Doping were now raised and they launched their investigation into “an
allegation of wrong doing in cycling.”
Eventually,
Parliament decided to join the party.
This is the
Team Sky TUES story, which came to light when confidential medical information
was hacked and leaked to the world by the so-called Fancy Bears - thought to be
Russian. They were reacting, it is presumed, in revenge for all the flak
hitting Russia over WADA’s (World Anti-Doping Agency) accusations of state
controlled doping which led to calls for Russians to be banned from the
Olympics. Their message is take a look what’s going on in the rest of world,
not just in Russia.
TUEs (Therapeutic
Use Exemptions) permit an athlete to take, for medicinal purposes, a banned
drug he would otherwise not be permitted to take.
In my view,
anyone who needs medicine to enable them to continue competing should not be
competing, they should be resting.
In Wiggins
case the drug was a powerful steroid known to enhance performance. Wiggins was permitted this drug to treat his breathing
allergies, we are told. So its use was legal. But was
it ethical?
Immediately,
the news provoked outcry because clearly Team Sky had moved from being whiter
that white to being tinged with grey.
The question
everyone has been asking is, was it ethical for a team fond of telling the
world they ride clean, then to allow the use such a powerful steroid?
When asked
if by taking this drug for his breathing allergies could Wiggin’s performance also
have been enhanced when he won the 2012 Tour. Brailsford said he couldn’t know if it was or
it wasn’t. So that was the first great unknown. And with
it came the doubt.
And then
along came the second unknown, the Daily Mail story of a jiffy bag flown out to
France for Team Sky. What did it contain? No one was saying. So more suspicion. More doubt.
And then,
under pressure from the MPs, Brailsford claims it contained a harmless medicine.
Understandably,
he is now being called on to provide independent evidence in support of this
claim.
Otherwise
this story will run and run.
Especially
as the Daily Hate Mail have now got their hooks into Brailsford.
They are alleging
that he tried to persuade them not to run story in the first place by offering
them another story instead.
Whatever the
truth in this, it pains me that it is the Mail putting our sport on the rack.
Very clever paper, the Mail, combining good informative features with malicious
deceit, such as the grossly exaggerated stories of migrants flooding into Britain
which influenced the Brexit vote!
But back to
this public relations disaster facing Team Sky and British Cycling.
There can be
no doubt that the biggest sports story of the New Millennium, British Cycling’s
stupendous rise from nowhere to top UK Olympic sport. And then Team Sky gave us Tour de France
champions, all this in one decade. Now it has been overshadowed by – by what exactly?
By allegations
of wrong doing but with no actual proof of wrong doing. Certainly Team Sky have spoilt
their copybook by allowing a rider legal use of an illegal (in sport) drug. And
British Cycling and Team Sky between them have made a mess of their handling of
the Jiffy Bag story, giving the impression that they had something to hide?
Yet neither
Team Sky nor British Cycling has been found to have broken the rules, no one
has failed a dope test.
Brailsford
told the committee he is confident that when Ukad report on their findings, it
will be clear there has been no wrong doing.
In the
meantime, doubt remains. And doubt –
unless cleared up – can be poisonous.
