Former UCI president Brain Cookson has called for the reputation of Team Sky and Sir Bradley Wiggins to be ‘reinstated’ following an inconclusive conclusion to UKAD’s investigation into British Cycling and the British WorldTour team.
In an interview with the BBC, Cookson stated the ‘the reputation of the sport, the reputation of the team and the reputation of the rider Bradley Wiggins should be reinstated’.
This comment followed Cookson’s assessment that the contents of the jiffy bag, which became the focus of the investigation, will remain a mystery while insisting that ‘no rules were broken’.
UKAD finished its investigation into British Cycling and Team Sky last month concluding that it was unable to confirm the contents of the mystery package delivered by Simon Cope at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine.
The invesitagtion began following investigations made by the Daily Mail newspaper after journalists there were given a tip off from an unkown source regarding the jiffy bag.
This conclusion of the investigation led to Wiggins releasing a statement labelling the inquest a ‘malicious witch hunt’, calling for the identity of the whistleblower and suggesting potential legal action.
Team Sky and British Cycling found themselves in further hot water regarding the use of therapeutic use exemptions last month as former technical director of Team GB Shane Sutton implied that TUEs were used to find ‘marginal gains’ without committing an anti-doping violation.
However Cookson, who has previously defended the UCI’s TUE policy, reaffirmed that Sutton’s comments were completely within the realms of what is acceptable in cycling.
‘I’ve said many times before I don’t think anyone should be surprised when a professional sports team pushes the rules right to the very limit,’ adding, ‘That’s what professional sports teams do – you see it in football, you see it in Formula One and so on.
‘That’s essentially I think what’s happened here; in terms of the structures that were in place at the time, the rules were abided by.’