The storm engulfing Team Sky and British Cycling erupted again on Monday night.
It has emerged that the medical supplier who sent a batch of a banned substance to British Cycling’s headquarters has refused to co-operate with UK Anti-Doping or the governing body’s own investigation.
Sportsmail can reveal that the company which sent testosterone patches to the National Cycling Centre in Manchester in 2011 was Oldham-based Fit 4 Sport Ltd.
A package of testosterone patches was sent to National Cycling Centre in Manchester in 2011
On their website, the company list the Football Association and high-profile Premier League clubs among their clients.
Team Sky’s then medical director and current team psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters claimed in March that the highly controversial package was ‘sent in error’, but neither the company nor a former team doctor have provided sufficient evidence to prove that.
In 2011, orders for medical supplies for Team Sky and British Cycling were made by Dr Richard Freeman, who resigned as British Cycling team doctor last month.
British Cycling have tried to investigate how a banned substance that has a history of abuse in the sport — the disgraced Lance Armstrong was a user — arrived on their premises.
In March, Peters told The Sunday Times that in 2011 Freeman had requested written confirmation from the company that it was sent in error, which he had then shown to Peters. It is claimed it came in the form of an email.
But when British Cycling requested a proper paper trail, complete with delivery notes, the company refused to respond. Sportsmail understands UKAD’s own investigators were also met by a refusal to co-operate.
British Cycling said on Monday night that they will terminate their relationship with Fit 4 Sport.
British cyclists have reacted in horror to Shane Sutton’s defence of TUE use within Team Sky
Julie Harrington, new chief executive of British Cycling, said: ‘As part of our own internal investigation we invited Dr Freeman and our national medical supplier, Fit 4 Sport, to contribute and we were disappointed we didn’t get any co-operation. We will be reviewing our supply partner.’
I visited Fit 4 Sport’s Oldham offices on Monday to find a well-organised, successful company. Parked outside was a Porsche with a personalised number plate and a member of the distribution staff said one of the company directors, Elizabeth Armer, was inside.
In the main distribution centre one large parcel was marked for the FA medical department, complete with Three Lions crest. The company claim on their website that Team Sky remain a client.
Upstairs I asked a member of staff if I could speak to Ms Armer, only to be told that Ms Armer was not there. I was asked to leave.
After The Sunday Times revealed in March that the testosterone delivery had been discovered by UKAD investigators at around the same time that they also found evidence of a big order for triamcinolone — the banned cortico-steroid at the centre of the Sir Bradley Wiggins medical exemption controversy — Peters said: ‘I was with a colleague when the order arrived and it was brought to our attention.
‘Dr Freeman explained that the order had never been placed and so must have been sent in error. I asked Dr Freeman to return it to the supplier, and to (request) written confirmation that it was sent in error.
‘That confirmation arrived. I was satisfied that this was simply an administrative error and it wasn’t necessary to (inform) Dave Brailsford (then performance director of British Cycling).’
Bradley Wiggins applied for a TUE prior to his Tour de France triumph with Team Sky in 2012
It is believed both UKAD and the General Medical Council are still looking at the testosterone patches delivery as part of ongoing investigations.
Meanwhile, British cyclists reacted with horror to the suggestion that their former bosses may have manipulated the medical exemption system to achieve success.
In a BBC documentary, Shane Sutton, who coached Wiggins to Tour de France glory and until last year was technical director at British Cycling, defended Wiggins’s use of TUEs. Asked if ‘finding the gains might mean getting the TUE’, Sutton said: ‘Yes, because the rules allow you to do that.’
But on Monday Olympic star Katie Archibald and Paralympic gold medallist Jody Cundy expressed their angry disagreement with Sutton’s comments. ‘If that’s the attitude people are taking to medical things, then it’s a good job he’s gone,’ said Cundy.
Archibald described Sutton’s comments as ‘outrageous’. ‘That’s completely against the ethics of the sport,’ she added. ‘And attaching a term like “marginal gains” to that sort of practice is also quite distressing because it’s almost a trademark British Cycling phrase, isn’t it?’