Sky should explain Giro fee
David Walsh12:00AM January 1, 2018
Chris Froome and Team Sky face an uneasy New Year
Four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome, left, leads a Team Sky training ride in Mallorca last month. Picture: AP
At this time of year some loose ends should be tied. Not least surrounding the ongoing controversy that circles the sport of cycling, the credibility of Team Sky and the reputation of the four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome.
The rider’s legal team is engaged with the UCI’s anti-doping foundation (CADF) fighting an adverse drug test for excessive Salbutamol at the Vuelta a Espana last September. Froome is hopeful that the process will move relatively quickly but this is not usually how it plays out. Lawyers get paid by the hour and when a cyclist challenges an adverse analytical finding, the UCI does not see that it is obliged to rush anything. Perhaps this is to discourage those wishing to challenge the system, but it may also relate to the need to do everything by the book. Sometime this year, there will be a result.
In the meantime I would like to see Brian Cookson explain himself. Before 2013, Cookson was president of British Cycling. At that point he decided to stand against the then president of the UCI, Pat McQuaid. Many within the sport were on Cookson’s side. Unlike McQuaid, he hadn’t been involved during the Lance Armstrong era and in the run-up to the election he talked the anti-doping talk and spoke of a new beginning for cycling.
Having won the election, he agreed to an annual salary £76,000 ($131,300) less than what McQuaid had received. Still, at £235,000 he wasn’t being badly paid. Many of those who had wanted Cookson elected were underwhelmed by his presidency. He was good on diplomacy but not as strong on doping as many had hoped he would be. He travelled a lot, spoke about development, women’s cycling, but didn’t see the sport needed him to lead on anti-doping. Ultimately, judgment on his reign was delivered last September when he stood for re-election and was soundly beaten by French challenger David Lappartient. He said he was surprised by the result. He shouldn’t have been.
Here’s what Cookson needs to explain. Earlier this month he spoke publicly about Team Sky and argued that in the light of an inconclusive UK Anti-Doping investigation into a mysterious medical package delivered to Sky in 2011, the team was in the clear. The UKAD investigation proved neither guilt nor innocence on Sky’s part but Cookson wanted the reputations of the team and Bradley Wiggins reinstated. He admitted the team had pushed the rules in getting therapeutic use exemptions for Wiggins but it was time to forget that.
“UKAD have not been able to put a case together so that’s the end of the story,” Cookson said.
At the time he was making the case for the renewal of trust in Team Sky the former president must have been aware of the adverse analytical finding hanging over Froome, a case involving a urine sample with twice the legal limit for Salbutamol. What was Cookson thinking? Was he not shocked by the possibility that cycling’s champion and the rider that inspired belief in Team Sky was facing a potential doping ban? Why at that very moment, knowing what he knew, did Cookson go public in relation to the team?
A second and no less easily explained loose end from the Froome affair is Team Sky’s deal with the organisers of the Giro d’Italia, which resulted in a commitment from the team that their star rider would compete in the 2018 race in return for a €1.4 million ($2.15m) appearance fee. Giro organiser Mauro Vegni denied that he agreed an appearance fee.
“Suggestions like that (with Froome) create problems for us with other riders,” Vegni said. “Imagine if another rider comes to me and says, ‘You gave Froome something, so what about me?’ I always deal with the teams. I’ve not personally spoken to Chris Froome, I’ve only spoken to team boss Dave Brailsford.”
Sources inside Team Sky and RCS, the media group that organises the Giro, have confirmed a €1.4m fee was agreed. Late last month Team Sky and RCS announced Froome’s participation in the 2018 Giro. There was a video promoting his expected appearance in the race and it was clear the people behind the Giro d’Italia believed they had pulled off a coup in convincing the Tour de France champion to come to their race. Two weeks later the story of Froome’s Salbutamol problem became public and Vegni quickly realised the great coup had become a problem.
It was the timing of the story that killed him. “Perhaps we are simply very unlucky,” Vegni lamented, “but as soon as we announce with great fanfare the presence of Froome at the next Giro, boom, the sky falls in.”
From that it was clear that during the negotiations with Team Sky to have Froome at the 2018 Giro and the commitment to hand over a €1.4m appearance fee, nobody on the Sky side mentioned anything about the Salbutamol test. It is safe to suggest that had he known about the adverse test, he wouldn’t have agreed the appearance fee. The question for Team Sky is straightforward. Did the team think it was ethical to withhold the information about the test while negotiating a substantial fee? Would it not have been fairer to withdraw from the Giro negotiations?
Vegni is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If Froome’s case is not resolved before the Giro in May, the Sky rider will be entitled to compete but Vegni has indicated he wouldn’t want Froome in these circumstances. It is a mess that Sky knowingly entered into. The Giro organisers walked into it blindfolded. Team Sky need to publicly explain what they were about when they negotiated the €1.4m appearance fee.