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CMS Doping in sport revelations/discussion

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As I thought. So basically we will never know who.
I think GMC will be happy they managed to charge him without having to worry about finding any riders and UKAD will be happy they can at a minimum, charge him for tampering (which he's already admitted anyway) .

If UKAD now wants to get to the bottom of the story and find the mystery rider, they need to go right back to Jess Varnish, Sutton's sacking over her, Matt Lawton and obtain Sutton's Affidavit O'Rourke continually demanded from Daily Mail Editors safe alleging it's Suttons signature to protect Daily Mail from defamation claims by Freeman, Brailsford & Wiggins over jiffygate. She wouldn't be continually demanding it (even the closing submission says she's disappointed GMC would not obtain it using Section 35A) if it's going to harm Freeman's image and neither would Freeman want her to unless it would help his credibility imo.
 
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They don't have the power of the medical act like GMC do. Rather absurdly, it's the GMC who decide if the Defence can use the medical act to obtain documents under Section 35A, but why would they ever want to help the defence as the prosecution? That side of it is only in GMCs favor I think, so that chance of getting to the bottom of Jiffygate is also gone now, unless Freeman gets to appeal to the High Court. Freeman is 61 years old though, if he needs to work for another 4 years it might be worth appealing, if he can retire, I wouldn't blame him for just getting on with his retirement instead, he doesn't need a licence or to work in cycling anyway, why fight?
 
They don't have the power of the medical act like GMC do. Rather absurdly, it's the GMC who decide if the Defence can use the medical act to obtain documents under Section 35A, but why would they ever want to help the defence as the prosecution? That side of it is only in GMCs favor I think, so that chance of getting to the bottom of Jiffygate is also gone now, unless Freeman gets to appeal to the High Court. Freeman is 61 years old though, if he needs to work for another 4 years it might be worth appealing, if he can retire, I wouldn't blame him for just getting on with his retirement instead, he doesn't need a licence or to work in cycling anyway, why fight?


The issue with going to appeal is that, from a medical perspective, he's admitted the major charges. The punishment will be the same . Dishonesty is big thing with them. This doping issue is largely for the media. Going to the High Court would oblige Lawton to give evidence and release the affidavit but is there the will to do it.
 
I think GMC will be happy they managed to charge him without having to worry about finding any riders and UKAD will be happy they can at a minimum, charge him for tampering (which he's already admitted anyway) .

If UKAD now wants to get to the bottom of the story and find the mystery rider, they need to go right back to Jess Varnish, Sutton's sacking over her, Matt Lawton and obtain Sutton's Affidavit O'Rourke continually demanded from Daily Mail Editors safe alleging it's Suttons signature to protect Daily Mail from defamation claims by Freeman, Brailsford & Wiggins over jiffygate. She wouldn't be continually demanding it (even the closing submission says she's disappointed GMC would not obtain it using Section 35A) if it's going to harm Freeman's image and neither would Freeman want her to unless it would help his credibility imo.
Sam...there isn't a mystery rider...it's riders...and it will not have just been testo "patches"....unless of course you think that Capone was just a tax dodger....
 
lols...doctor dopes riders but after sam and parker join its all about a journo.......meanwhile wiggins and froome will be feeling a little bit less secure about their legacy...which is a justice of sorts
Both GMC themselves and the press use the singular term to dope a rider. Not riders. O'Rourke in her summing up also only used the term rider. It may well be more than one rider, but the charge was rider.
 
lols...doctor dopes riders but after sam and parker join its all about a journo.......meanwhile wiggins and froome will be feeling a little bit less secure about their legacy...which is a justice of sorts
We've gone from rotten apples to lone wolves and nothing's really changed., has it? The response is always the same: move along now.

As for this obsession with the journo, the one we've been so reliably informed for so long by some round here that's going to be sued by Wiggins (can you hear that tick-tock-tick-tock noise in the background? That's the clock running down on that happening): I'm not getting it. Freeman's QC achieved her objective in part by outing Sutton as the source of Lawton's Jiffy-Bag story. For sure, having the affidavit with his signature on it would be the icing on the cake but all it would be would be full proof that Sutton's the source. A journalist getting an anonymous source to sign a statement saying this is what they said is good practice, nothing more. But hey, if some want to obsess about this, let em. It doesn't change anything.
 
Going to the High Court would oblige Lawton to give evidence and release the affidavit but is there the will to do it.
Wouldn't that depend on what - if any - appeal was admitted? An appeal is not a do over, it is not a fresh hearing of the evidence. It is quite a narrow process.

Perhaps the Clinic's legal service team would like to identify exactly what the nature of Freeman's High Court appeal would be, rather than just state authoritatively that it would leave a journalist with no choice but to publicly give up his source.
 
Doesn't history suggest patches are generally what you would order to dope though to control the dosage? e.g. Landis said to have used Androderm patches? Microdosing
We've gone from rotten apples to lone wolves and nothing's really changed., has it? The response is always the same: move along now.

As for this obsession with the journo, the one we've been so reliably informed for so long by some round here that's going to be sued by Wiggins (can you hear that tick-tock-tick-tock noise in the background? That's the clock running down on that happening): I'm not getting it. Freeman's QC achieved her objective in part by outing Sutton as the source of Lawton's Jiffy-Bag story. For sure, having the affidavit with his signature on it would be the icing on the cake but all it would be would be full proof that Sutton's the source. A journalist getting an anonymous source to sign a statement saying this is what they said is good practice, nothing more. But hey, if some want to obsess about this, let em. It doesn't change anything.
Daily Mail is a cash 4 stories news source fmk - wake up man! Even Wikipedia banned the public using their journalism as credible information sources. Microsoft browser security software even blocked their website at one point claiming it was a fake news site! The whole thing is just hungry football journalists now. Just look at them all patting each other on the back yesterday at how great their work has been and thanking each other. It's all ***, Sutton sold them a lie, they investigated nothing, UKAD simply found an order of testgoel invoiced openly on BC's accounts and that's about all that came out of jiffygate! For all we know the gel could be for Freeman himself. In fact replace 'rider' for 'Freeman' in MPTS's Verdict and you realise there is no link to the charge other than they don't believe Freeman, they believe Sutton a little more though, so went with it. Long way to go, hopefully DCMS v2 going in for a second attempt might do a better job of actually pulling everyone into the room involved. Journalists, Affidavits, Sutton & Freeman to hammer it out.
 
Wouldn't that depend on what - if any - appeal was admitted? An appeal is not a do over, it is not a fresh hearing of the evidence. It is quite a narrow process.

Perhaps the Clinic's legal service team would like to identify exactly what the nature of Freeman's High Court appeal would be, rather than just state authoritatively that it would leave a journalist with no choice but to publicly give up his source.


The decision stated that Freeman's story wasn't true because Sutton - "a credible witness" - said it wasn't. The Daily Mail think would show that he has a record of lying (as he told DCMS something completely different) and an intention to incriminate Freeman
 
The decision stated that Freeman's story wasn't true because Sutton - "a credible witness" - said it wasn't. The Daily Mail think would show that he has a record of lying (as he told DCMS something completely different) and an intention to incriminate Freeman
It's a perfect storm really.

O'Rourke on her first day of opening statements says she wants Lawton as a witness, and claims an Affidavit held by Daily Mail is full of lies and she wants to put that to Sutton because his DCMS statements are not compatible with it.

Daily Mail, Lawton & Sutton refuse to cooperate with O'Rourke's requests. They are untouchable in the legal sense anyway due to the legal affidavit and Sutton's anonymity in the story it protects them from defamation claims, but O'Rourke at least gets their refusal in public and Sutton knowing she knows it exists and will ask him about it.

Sutton arrives and implodes within a couple of questions and goes back to Spain before having to face the affidavit questioning. GMC conveniently only ever called him as a volunteer witness, he's a free witness, GMC do at least get his word the order isn't for him and why he's there for GMC anyway.

O'Rourke having reached a dead end with Lawton & Daily Mail now calls GMC to obtain the Affidavit using Section 35A of the medical act because it contains a number of lies important to this tribunal. GMC refuse her request. Given Sutton has just walked out, Lawton refused to cooperate and Daily Mail are just ignoring her, she now gets into the public that GMC too are refusing her requests and so it becomes rather obvious GMC don't want to know, don't want the panel to discover Suttons lies far more significant than Freeman's lies to UKAD about the Fit4Sport email etc. They already have Sutton's statement the order isn't for him and so already expect to use Sutton's word as the truth, without hard evidence Freeman ever doped a rider.

So, in the anti-doping sense the outcome is unsatisfactory for everyone. Even DCMS are now calling for another investigation and unless they get Lawton & Daily Mail involved, what do they hope to achieve that hasn't not been achieved already? Freeman continues saying it was for Sutton. Sutton says it isn't. Will DCMS call Lawton & Daily Mail? How can they? They'll end up un-telling their own DCMS Report that Sky were doping with the jiffybag which basically believed the jiffybag story happened as signed in the affidavit.
 
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2 General Elections in between didnt help
And if we date the start of all this to Varnish standing up to Sutton then you can also add in the Brexit referendum, three Prime Ministers and the whole of the Trump presidency. Westworld, Fleabag and the Crown hadn't even started when this began. And Game of Thrones fans were eagerly anticipating the release of the sixth book in the series. They're still waiting, so we can't really complain, now can we?
 
Angry man shakes his skinny fists at the sky:
“It’s just not credible that this doctor was a maverick working on his own, is it? The idea that he would purchase this testosterone for that athlete and interfere with the performance of athletes without anyone else knowing or being involved just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up.”
The angry man here is a DCMS member, Clive Efford, the Labour MP for Eltham.

Meanwhile, Damian Collins, the former chair of the Digital, Culture, Media & Sport committee, is taking fit-for-purpose - a long-standing cliché that's never won anything - for an outing around the paddock:
“The 10-year rule is not fit for purpose because I think it’s important to know which rider was the intended recipient of the testosterone patches. We don’t know, of course, if that was a one-off or part of a pattern of behaviour. It’s possible that rider, if not riding in competition, could still be involved in the sport. And, therefore, it’s important that we should know. Because someone who cheated as an athlete might also try to cheat as a coach as well.”
Thankfully he stopped short of saying we have to protect the kiddies.
 
Meanwhile, in the same piece, Shane Sutton is insisting Freeman is, in fact, a lone wolf, and he probably wasn't even doing it for a BC rider:
“Maybe the doctor was working outside cycling – I don’t know – but all the athletes that I’ve worked with in the track programme in my time, I vouch for all of them,” he said.

“The knights of the world that we have and the great achievers over the past decade or so within British cycling, they must be sitting there thinking this is such a shame.”

He said he had spoken to some of them who were “sad that people would see them in a bad light”. “But I’ve assured them that you don’t know anyone until you’ve lived with them. And I’ve lived with all these athletes.

“I would spend three months of my life in a room with Sir Chris Hoy, the Jason Queallys of this world, the Craig MacLeans, all the greats of the past, the Vicky Pendletons, the [Jess] Varnishes.”

He added: “I just think the whole thing’s been a shambles from day one in respect that a man’s lied, he’s then openly admitted that he’s lied. Well, it’s now time to tell the truth.

“But given the statute of limitations and everything else, will we ever hear the truth? I’m not so sure.”
I guess he's hoping for a quick rehab and a chance to get his autobiography back on track and in shops in time to be stuffed in all the dads and lads' Christmas stockings.
 
William Fotheringham has never been known to ask hard questions. Now he's seeking to be a sheep in wolf's clothing. Knowingly, he opens his latest Guardian piece by telling us that, "to quote Monty Python’s Flying Circus, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition." He then withers on and on and on before coming to the meat and two veg of a piece titled "Freeman now has nothing to lose in a lurching, revealing narrative"
Freeman is no innocent victim in this, according to the GMC ruling. However, if he senses that he has nothing more to lose, and were to decide to name names and go into details over who knew what and when, and who was given what and when … he has already written one book; there is more material for a publisher now.

Since someone close to the hub of the action told the Daily Mail about the Jiffy bag story in October 2016, the narrative has been fuelled by selective leaking, back-stabbing and the settling of scores. If that were to continue, Friday’s ruling might be seen as a midpoint in the story, rather than an untidy conclusion
Unfortunately for the doyenne - and sometime darling - of British cycling reporting (for a very particular type of British cycling fan), Freeman has broken cover. And it doesn't look like Fotheringham's Mystic Meg moment is going to go anywhere: "'I know you will say I've lied, changed my story and I cannot be trusted. But I am not a doping doctor': Dr Richard Freeman, the medic at the heart of scandal in British Cycling's medal factory talks for first time since shocking verdict", say the rather unwieldy Daily Mail headline of his first post-verdict interview.
There is obviously the theoretical prospect he will be struck off, banned from being a doctor for ever or 'erased', as the technical parlance has it.

He won't know for days or even months whether this will happen. Even the theoretical avenue of appeal is just that for now: theoretical. Can he access funding? Can he win? He doesn't know. He can't comment. Neither will he make any kind of statement on whether he feels the verdict was fair or balanced.

'I believe in due process,' he says. 'I believe in evidence. I believe the truth will come out. I'm not a doper.'
 
Elsewhere, the British media has responded to Friday's news with ... repeats.

Back in November it was revealed in the MPTS tribunal that Sutton saw himself as more a gamekeeper than a poacher (which is a bit like Armstrong dropping the dime on Hamilton, isn't it?) and claimed to have voiced doubts about Chris Froome as far back as 2012, suggesting there was something iffy in his dealings with Bobby Julich. While Froome ignored the story, Julich sought to swat it away. Now the story has been reanimated. And this time we've got Froome's response:
"I am not aware of any specific follow-ups, but all the riders on Team Sky were subject to internal reviews of their data on an ongoing basis. I had very little contact with Shane Sutton as he was Brad’s coach. I know Shane wasn’t especially fond of me, particularly at that time. There was an element of internal rivalry as I was challenging for leadership of the team over the rider he coached."
It's all getting to be a bit like an episode of Succession or Empire, isn't it?
 

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