Advertisement

Cycling-Team Sky confident UKAD will find no wrongdoing

LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Team Sky are co-operating fully with a UK Anti-Doping investigation into a package sent to Bradley Wiggins at the end of the 2011 Dauphine race and are "confident" no wrongdoing will be found, they said on Tuesday. The British team issued a statement following boss Dave Brailsford's cross-examination by a Culture Media and Sport committee on Monday at which he revealed the "mystery" package contained the over-the-counter decongestant Fluimucil. Earlier at the same hearing former coach Shane Sutton confirmed that the package had contained medicine although he did not know what it was. Sutton said it had been administered to Wiggins by team doctor Richard Freeman. "Dave gave public evidence to the Select Committee yesterday for an hour as part of their inquiry into anti-doping," Team Sky said in a statement. "As we have always said we believe what is most important is for UKAD to establish the truth independently. We are confident that when they report it will be clear that there has been no wrongdoing." Team Sky and British Cycling have come under the spotlight in recent months with UKAD launching an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing. A Daily Mail story revealing that a package had been delivered by a British Cycling coach to Team Sky in 2011 followed shortly after cyber hackers accessed the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) database They released details of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) issued to Wiggins ahead of the 2011 and 2012 Tour de France and the 2013 Giro d'Italia. Brailsford, who prides himself on Team Sky being the world's cleanest cycling team, admitted during the hearing that he had handled the situation regarding the package and Wiggins' TUEs badly but insisted there had been no intention to mislead. He told MPs that an invoice "should be there" to document the shipment of Fluimucil - a drug that loosens mucus and which is not on WADA's prohibited list. "There's always lessons to be learned and you start with yourself. I could have done a lot better quite frankly," Brailsford said on Monday. "We have reviewed all our policies and how we use TUEs in the future and how do we gain and provide transparency while protecting competitive advantage." (Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)