CMS Doping in sport revelations/discussion

[Parker]

laptop nr. 4

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1320688427340279809

View: https://twitter.com/lawton_times/status/1320688427340279809

What does anyone think will be on these laptops anyway? He's already admitted to the charge of bad record keeping. UKAD have already had a look at one of them. And they seem to have access to his e-mails.

 

[MartinGT]

Nothing. I mean this is Team Sky who we are talking about. No stone left un turned. There wont be anything on them.

 

[samhocking]

That is the 2nd laptop which was his 2014 replacement laptop for the one robbed from the hotels safe in Greece, but he ended up eventually using a third laptop Team Sky supplied him because all the other doctors used Macbooks iirc.

 

[MartinGT]

Apparently he tried to sneak the laptop out

 

[yaco]

That is the 2nd laptop which was his 2014 replacement laptop for the one robbed from the hotels safe in Greece, but he ended up eventually using a third laptop Team Sky supplied him because all the other doctors used Macbooks iirc.

At the end of the day, Freeman has trouble keeping laptops in his possession or if he is lucky to retain his laptop, he then forgets the password or the laptop is fails to work - Laptops and Freeman are a poor combination.

 

[fmk_RoI]

What does anyone think will be on these laptops anyway?

The GCMS have been circling around this for some time now but they appear to be slowly getting to their point, which is that the perfectly legal IV récup programme may not have been as legal as claimed:

An apparently confused Freeman then said he was not sure why he would need to look at his laptop.

“It was looking at records for a rider whose level of 3.4 jumped to 7.2 nmol/L and jumped back again,” O’Rourke responded. “You had indicated you would need to see your laptop. We had agreed you would look at the laptop to see what was on it so if you were questioned about a particular rider or result, you would be aware of it.”

 

[70kmph]

Why would this genius need records somehow he remembers every single dosage he gave to the Sky staff and family members

 

[samhocking]

Why would this genius need records somehow he remembers every single dosage he gave to the Sky staff and family members

The records will be the ones UCI/CADF asked for. ie the teams have to submit each riders testosterone levels to CADF every 3 months for health monitoring. This is what Jackson is getting at. The laptop is neither here nor there, other than we assume has the hospital records on it GMC want to look at used in the 3 months submissions.
What doesn't make sense is the 2011 laptop was reported to Greek Police as stolen in 2014. It is the replacement laptop, not the laptop at 2011 Tour anyway. If the records exist for all the riders, then I'm not sure where that leaves UKAD, although UKAD did say they didn't actually look at the 2014 laptop and didn't take the data off it, so that means GMC probably haven't either.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Freeman on some of his colleagues, in an email from September 2010:

"I know Dr CC (Hulse) will not be able to adapt his views to reach a consensus decision fit for Sky’s purpose.”

Jackson then read out references in the email to two other doctors, which Freeman then confirmed were Roger Palfreeman and Simon Roberts. Quoting the email, Jackson said Freeman had written that Palfreeman, who had previously worked with the British Olympic teams in 2004 and 2008, “will not cope with the uncertainty of doping within professional cycling and will worry himself, and the team, to death”.

“The second [Roberts] is a cycling nut first. He is not what Team Sky would need to move forward and put Sky in a place to compete to win and a friend of Dr CC [Hulse].”

I can see both sides taking issue with this and spinning it to suit their preferred argument.

 

[samhocking]

Freeman on some of his colleagues, in an email from September 2010:I can see both sides taking issue with this and spinning it to suit their preferred argument.

More like a 3 sided argument now as Peters is most-seriously put into the ring by O'Rourke over Freeman claiming Peters fudged the report of Hulse's medical response in relation to the death of Gonzalez who ultimately ended up dead from sepsis caused by a leg wound.

It would appear Jackson has tried to expose Freeman as wanting Hulse out, in order to get IV & Needles into the medical protocol of team staff and riders for performance reasons, yet really all it's done is suggest Hulse wasn't suitable if there was another Gonzalez crisis to medically manage or simply deal with the 3 riders Freeman seemed to end up treating, one of which required a rTUE from the hospital as Hulse wouldn't deal with UCI over TUEs period. On the face of it, for the WADA Code and UCI No-Needles policy still over half a year away from 2010 Vuelta, Freeman is at least trying to improve medical care protocol, both for staff and rider by getting needles and IV equipment into the team perhaps? The incentive comes down to if Peters fudged Hulse or Freeman is wrong. A 3 hour meeting and claims of missing conversations between Hulse & Peters though??

 

[42x16ss]

Freeman was a doctor at Bolton, he would probably know little about Rabobank's doping down the years during that time. Leinders denied it and de Jongh endorsed him. Brailsford is more at fault for the appointment.

Sky as an organisation knew. Don't forget that Sky had also just signed Rabobank's classics leader and his main domestique.

 

[Parker]

Sky as an organisation knew. Don't forget that Sky had also just signed Rabobank's classics leader and his main domestique.

Leinders was at Sky for about 16 months. He went to races in team kit, gave interviews to the media. Yet nobody mentioned he was this famous doping doctor, not even on this forum. Then it came to light and then apparently everyone knew and it was well known by everyone. Although the Rabo riders themselves went off to Vienna for their actual doping.

 

[samhocking]

Leinders was at Sky for about 16 months. He went to races in team kit, gave interviews to the media. Yet nobody mentioned he was this famous doping doctor, not even on this forum. Then it came to light and then apparently everyone knew and it was well known by everyone. Although the Rabo riders themselves went off to Vienna for their actual doping.

Hulse in his DCMS statement suggested it was really Nicole Cookes coach who Peters brought in to fill the lack of IV Recovery knowledge Freeman pressed for and Hulse rejected. Leinders now has two witnesses both saying he was wanted for his experience in actual cycling-related injury treatment and infection control on the road. Hulse and his friend had no experience, Palfreeman only track, Freeman only Football.

 

[Parker]

Hulse in his DCMS statement suggested it was really Nicole Cookes coach who Peters brought in to fill the lack of IV Recovery knowledge Freeman pressed for and Hulse rejected. Leinders now has two witnesses both saying he was wanted for his experience in actual cycling-related injury treatment and infection control on the road. Hulse and his friend had no experience, Palfreeman only track, Freeman only Football.

It seems to me that Hulse was a cycling enthusiast who did sportives and thought that doing L'Etape was just the same as doing a real Tour stage. And then the likes of Flecha burst his bubble.

 

[samhocking]

It seems to me that Hulse was a cycling enthusiast who did sportives and thought that doing L'Etape was just the same as doing a real Tour stage. And then the likes of Flecha burst his bubble.

Yeah, the older riders like Flecha coming in would of course be demanding IV Recovery, it was standard practice in all teams at that time. But I think this is what Freeman was getting at yesterday when he said 'the riders thought it worked' and wanted the team to do it, but nobody knew how to do it, so why Cookes coach came in. It's all a bit of storm about nothing though. It's legal at the time, it calmed the riders and staff concerns after Vuelta 2010, but 8 months later there's no-needles policy anyway and all teams then began hiring nutritionist rather than IV Specialists and Leinders and Bartalucci left the team.
Lets see what happens. Nicole Cooke and her dad are one of Freemans witnesses - if it gets that far. I'd say it's gonna end up in judicial review though and ne at least another year yet.

 

[bobbins]

When was this?

When he was researching his book 'Inside Dave B' or was it 'Inside Team Sky' or whatever it was. He spent heaps of time with them, long enough to be tamed and house trained and to still be a fan with a typerwriter.

 

[bobbins]

Don't think Moore has ever had inside access to Sky/BC has he bobbins? I think Moore had interviews with Freeman just before the jiffybag story broke where Freeman talked more about the story behind Suttons bullying, the BC Tribunal that DCMS & UKAD were told about etc, but DCMS for whatever reason decided to not publish any of it re. Sutton, but stand behind Suttons claim to Lawton instead.
Lawton is said to have had this story about Sutton too at the time of Jiffygate. Did he do a deal with Sutton to not go with that story and jiffygate instead? Who knows. Even with Lawton & Sutton, we probably won't ever know until an FOI is possible on all the missing witness statements re. Sutton held by DCMS.

He did in 2013ish if I remember rightly. Spent heaps of time with them as far as I am aware. Was popular with the drones at Sky too.

 

[Parker]

He did in 2013ish if I remember rightly. Spent heaps of time with them as far as I am aware. Was popular with the drones at Sky too.

Maybe he should have been a journalist with great integrity like Kimmage, who never talks to anyone , only listens to 'sources' Floyd Landis and Digger Forum and isolates himself from any information that might challenge his prejudices.

Journalism is about talking to people, asking questions, cultivating sources and reporting what they find. It is not about publishing and investigating theories from anonymous posters on social media and nor should it be about making mundane occurrences into scandals (although much media is like that)

 

[macbindle]

The mundane Jiffy bag

The mundane Fancy Bears TUE revelations

The mundane Salbutamol bust, that was made to disappear.

Then there's this...

Cycling’s Team Sky boss ‘duped me’

Journalist David Walsh, whose investigations helped expose Lance Armstrong’s doping offences, says he was ‘duped’ by the boss of Team Sky.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[samhocking]

Walsh was so put of touch. If he had read the comic in 2010 we already knew Sky were using TUEs because Freeman was discussing the process of gettign one for Uran's asthma with Lionel Birnie in his behind the line work. That was published in August 2010. Walsh didn't do his research that's all. He wasn't duped, he just was late by several years to what was already known anyway.

 

[macbindle]

There is more to it than that. It wasnt in the public domain that Sky were using cortisone (via TUEs) in a manner that mirrored exactly a doping protocol.

Wiggins tried to throw people off the scent by claiming he had never had an injection.

 

[fmk_RoI]

He did in 2013ish if I remember rightly. Spent heaps of time with them as far as I am aware. Was popular with the drones at Sky too.

For the record - not something some round here care too much about - this is what Moore said about his access to the team when writing Sky's the Limit:

I told some of the people behind Team Sky back in December 2009 that I'd be writing a book about their first season, and then I mentioned it to Dave Brailsford at the Tour Down Under in January 2010. But he had other things on his mind at the time, as was demonstrated when, in September, during the Tour of Britain, I mentioned it to him again and he seemed not to know what I was talking about.

Access was never a problem. I actually didn't want to be too close, so I never asked to be ‘embedded.' I really just wanted to go about my normal work as a journalist, but in a more intense way, and gathering more information than I usually would. I suppose I've got to know Dave and Shane Sutton over the years, and I think they trust me to report what they say accurately, and to be fair and objective. In any case, they were open and helpful throughout the year.

He was not embedded in the same way David Walsh was for Inside Team Sky. In fact, he said he was not fond of the idea of being embedded:

I have a bit of a problem with the idea of being embedded. I mean, I'd say Paul [Kimmage] - for whom, I should point out, I have nothing but respect - is a special case. For one thing, he is never going to be anyone's mouthpiece or propagandist, nor is he going to compromise.

But speaking personally, the idea of being embedded... I think I would feel uncomfortable being treated as a special case, and I think I'd find it quite difficult to then be objective. Maybe I'm just soft. But I'd rather not get any special treatment, and feel free to write what I want.

Personally I think Moore was fair and balanced in Sky's the Limit, he retained objectivity, which is more than can be said for Walsh in Inside Team Sky. I get that some criticise the book as it didn't make a scene about Leinders (IIRC Moore added text addressing this in a subsequent edition of the book, which I have not read) but go back to what @Parker has rightly noted: months passed without anyone noticing Leinders's doping connections, not even the brains trust that is the Clinic.

 

[samhocking]

There is more to it than that. It wasnt in the public domain that Sky were using cortisone (via TUEs) in a manner that mirrored exactly a doping protocol.

Wiggins tried to throw people off the scent by claiming he had never had an injection.

It can only mirror a doping protocol, if you can discredit all of ENT Simon Hargreaves notes on his out-patient at Bolton NHS. Remember, WADA TUE exists to be used by athletes 'in competition'. The very fact the application requires specialist ENT diagnosis is really what would need to be debated to decide any violation of WADA Code.

 

[samhocking]

Unsurprisingly GMC have got almost exactly the same answers from Freeman in 2020 as Birnie got out of him having a coffee in 2011 in a hotel and exactly what DCMS got out of him in 2017/18 whenever it was. If only Walsh had read this by 2013, he would have had quite a lot more to work with once inside Sky lol chatting to Dave haha!


Cyclesport/CW August 2011

SATURDAY – Stage 6 Les Gets – Le Collet d’Allevard

The doc is in the hotel’s bar, laptop open, phone pressed to his ear, looking concerned.
Rigoberto Uran has been suffering with breathing difficulties for the past couple of days and Dr Freeman is trying to get a Therapeutic Use Exemption for a drug to treat him.

“It can be very tricky, especially at the weekends,” he says. Yesterday, Dr Freeman contacted the race’s anti-doping doctor and put the case for a TUE. The drug is a steroid that can mimic a corticosteroid in the urine and can be misused.

“Rigo has got a chest problem,” he says. “With most asthma patients, you will never find out specifically what causes it. We’ve tested for pollen and in Rigo’s case it doesn’t appear to be that.

“The ADAMS [World Anti-Doping Agency’s Administration and Management System] website can be tricky. Your worst fear is that you’re stuck in the mountains with no internet connection but we would not give anything that’s on the list to a rider until we had everything confirmed through the proper channels.”

Could he not use the ADAMS hotline and make a phone call? “That works well Monday to Friday but not so well at the weekends,” he says wryly, acknowledging that the onus is always on the athlete and the team doctor to ensure everything is done properly.

It took a few tries but eventually, he got through to Dr Mario Zorzoli of the UCI and gained the necessary permission.

But isn’t there an argument that if Uran is unwell and his breathing is seriously affected, he should pull out of the race? “He may well do that. But he’s an ambitious young man who wants to support Bradley and he wants to secure his Tour team.

“We are not talking about performance-enhancement here. The TUE is designed to enable an athlete to take medication that a normal human being would be prescribed by a doctor. It cannot be right that you and I could go to a doctor and be prescribed something that an athlete with the same condition could not use.”

Dr Freeman used to work for Bolton Wanderers Football Club before joining Sky. He’s also worked on golf’s European Tour. Despite the challenges of being away from home for so much of the year, he enjoys the role.

I ask what he makes of the UCI’s new no-needles policy. “I think it’s fantastic,” he says. “It takes away a large window of opportunity for a lot of products. It means that there are no short cuts to proper rest and recovery. And it also removes that ladder of progression. If riders get used to vitamin injections as a matter of routine, it makes it easier to not question what’s in the syringe.”

 

[macbindle]

Why would an NHS ENT specialist know anything about doping protocols? Jorg Jaksche and Michael Rasmussen describe how they used TUEs to obtain the same drug and use it in the same manner for doping purposes. An interesting coincidence (St David of Miller also used it)

Not wanting to impugn Hargreaves reputation, but it looks as if there might be a Freeman link (Freeman worked for Bolton Wanderers)

It is interesting that Wiggins former team doctor at Garmin (Prentice Steffan) and Jeroen Swart were very uncomfortable with using TUEs to administer Triamcinalone. Curious that Wiggins and Freeman had no such qualms.