Triamcinolone is a PED, which is why you need a TUE to use it. If you're talking about what was in the package, then at this point it's pure speculation, but the way that Brailsford and the others have behaved around it certainly hints that it's not fully sanguine. That most certainly is an allegation, but the TUEs - both Wiggins' and Froome's - are proof that Sky riders have been taking PEDs, just not an EPO-type positive smoking gun because, obviously, with the appropriate exemption those are not breaking the rules. We don't know if they have been breaking the rules, but we do know they've been using PEDs.
What we do know, however, is that all of those things we suspected were lies or at least times where the team used selective interpretation or economies with the truth in order to present themselves how they wished in the press are starting to bite them, as is the complex and sometimes muddled relationship between Team Sky and British Cycling. A lot of their PR has been shown to be nothing more than exactly that; the Zero Tolerance policy as we all know was as impermeable as a sieve (de Jongh, Leinders, Knaven, Rogers, Barry, Tiernan-Locke all getting past that, some even after the white sheet declaration of innocence document). The claims that they would withdraw riders who needed TUEs from races were shown to be clearly false after Froome was spotted supping from an inhaler in a race he subsequently won (thanks to an emergency TUE because he apparently would have been too ill to race otherwise, so clearly a powerful TUE that spells the difference between failure to even compete and dominant victory) and what we now know about Wiggins - again, so sick he needed a TUE for a very powerful substance, with which he was able to complete the most dominant Tour de France victory since 2004. The claims they would hold a fan Q&A session at the velodrome where people could ask the questions they had, and never took place in a format even remotely akin to what was suggested.
We've been asked to believe some quite unbelievable things by the Sky/BC team over the last few years. And in this I'm just talking about their PR and public statements, not their performances on the bikes - while some of those have been difficult to swallow, you can't lie about the actual on the day performance. And a lot of those things should now be brought back into the public eye and placed under scrutiny now that we have had it proven to us, quite unequivocally, that at least somebody in the team here is prepared, under investigation, to make easily disprovable lies under pressure. And the team's figurehead, Dave Brailsford, is either so naïve he doesn't question any story given to him, no matter how preposterous or demonstrably false, and goes public with it, or he's willing to do the heavy work of the lying too. Being asked to believe that Wiggins never made it back to the bus to receive the package from Cope when there's clear video evidence of Wiggins at the bus after the stage in question. Being asked to believe that Cope took a day trip through Switzerland and eastern France to meet Emma Pooley, who it can be easily shown was racing in a high profile event in a completely different country. It brings other statements into focus. Such as the reasons for hiring Geert Leinders or his role of weighing people, for example.
The Sky isn't falling at the time of writing, however. What we have discovered, however, is that Team Sky is just another team. Little of what they do is particularly revolutionary; they just know better than others where and how they can push it. They may be better in the sports science area than a lot of other teams, but with Froome not going in a wind tunnel for years and so on they're hardly the space-age science fiction supertech team they wanted to present. The tech is almost certainly a part of the team's success, but it's only a part. Race tactics have been predicated on a simple bludgeoning tactic, based on having the strongest rider in the race. It's why they've managed to nail stage racing, but the biggest one day races continue to mainly elude them (indeed can be limited to København 2011 and Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2016 in terms of the truly biggest, though Stannard and Thomas have won plenty of races like Omloop and E3).
What has happened, however, is that the tide has turned. The team has been caught on the back foot with these allegations and has, as has been the case in the past, struggled to get a coherent justification for it together that both fits with the facts and their stated aims. The difference here is that the spin was too blatant, too obvious, and too hastily put out there, and it's had the effect of exposing the team as lying, either among themselves, to the public, or both. Trust is eroded, especially from those who had been riding the gravy train and are now having to revise their positions and ask the difficult questions they were keen to avoid while the going was good. It seems quite a few people who had criticized those who doubted the transparent clothes as naysayers who didn't understand the science are beginning to come to the conclusion that the Emperor is, in fact, naked.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram