Shane Sutton and David Brailsford’s appearances in front of the culture, media and sport committee sparked so many flashbacks to my frustration in trying to deal with British CyclingThe reputations of British Cycling, Team Sky, Bradley Wiggins and, by association, every contemporary British cyclist were all on the line in front of the culture, media and sport committee before Christmas. I felt for the MPs. They kept asking a very simple question: “Can you tell us what was in the Jiffy bag?”Time and again, as they sought to drag out answers, the MPs summed up the verbiage with a succinct response: “I am not sure whether that was a yes or a no.” I had so many flashbacks during those...
From the Olympics to Euro 2016 to the death of Muhammad Ali, 2016 has been a rollercoaster ride that will not be forgotten, for the right and wrong reasonsIt was somehow typical of 2016 that on the morning after Andy Murray accepted the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award for a third time in his career, the focus should switch so joltingly to a man whose strategic brilliance had produced an avalanche of Olympic medals and the first British winner of the Tour de France, but who was now seen trying to persuade a sceptical House of Commons select committee that his team had no involvement with doping. Related: Andy Murray’s Sports Personality treble shows how he has won...
Culture committee questions transparency in UK cycling after facing uphill climb to tease out facts about the most infamous Jiffy bag in the sportFor three hours in the Thatcher room in Portcullis House the air had all the ease of a dentist’s surgery as the committee for culture, media and sport slowly prised, like recalcitrant teeth, a series of facts from Sir Dave Brailsford, Shane Sutton and the British Cycling chairman, Bob Howden, about the most infamous Jiffy bag in cycling, an envelope delivered to Dr Richard Freeman at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011 that has come to symbolise Team Sky and British Cycling’s lack of transparency.The governing body and its offshoot professional team live by process; the session...
Sir Dave Brailsford and Shane Sutton will appear before MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee on Monday. What should they be asked?Back when Team Sky was in utero, Sir Dave Brailsford made a startling statement of intent. “People come into professional cycling and compromise,” he told the Guardian in 2009. “We can’t compromise.” He was discussing specifically why he was avoiding riders associated with doping, but his words carried a deeper message: others might sprint into grey and black to be successful but Sky’s aim was to be straight as well as successful.There was always a contrast between the public projection of the Sky image – marginal gains, no stone left unturned, glory upon glory – and the...
There was much to feel good about in Manchester on Monday but the questions faced by cycling – the sport that most embodies the great British medal rush – after recent revelations continue to dampen the moodBritain’s triumphant Olympians and Paralympians partied beneath sunny skies as they deservedly took the acclaim of the crowds in Trafalgar Square.But during the first leg of their 48‑hour victory lap on Monday, it was not just the traditional Manchester weather that threatened to rain on Team GB’s parade but the bad vibes emanating from the structure in the east of the city that up to now has been championed as the symbol of all that is good about the great National Lottery-fuelled charge up...