Ex-Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman will no longer appear in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to give evidence into the mystery package that was delivered to the end of the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011, a race won by Bradley Wiggins.
UK Anti-doping chief executive Nicole Sapstead and former British Cycling coach Simon Cope, who delivered the package to Freeman at the race in the French Alps, flying from Gatwick to Geneva on the same day, are still due to testify at tomorrow’s oral evidence session.
The hearing had originally been scheduled to take place on 22 February but was postponed since UKAD, which is also investigating the mystery package, asked for more time while it concluded its probe into “allegations of wrongdoing.”
UKAD opened its investigation into what was in that package in October and in December the Team Sky principal, Dave Brailsford, informed the CMS committee he had been told by Freeman the package, a Jiffy bag, contained Fluimucil.
Cheaply and widely available on the continent, the decongestant is not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and former Team Sky coach Shane Sutton, appearing before Brailsford, told the MPs Wiggins needed the drug because he was struggling with his breathing. Brailsford said Freeman told him he had administered the drug via a nebuliser.
