unethical

Sorry for breaking my usual Monday – Thursday – Monday routine, but there’s something I just have to get off my chest.

The UK Government has published its select committee’s report into the Sky Professional Cycling Team, and its somewhat surprising administration of certain medicines to 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins.

Bradley did nothing wrong by the rules of the sport.  He took a drug that, although performance enhancing in nature, is allowable with a therapeutic use exemption (TUE).

So, no problem then?

The report recognises this fact.  But it’s more damning in its assault on Bradley’s and the team’s ethics.  And I agree with the report’s comments here.

Cycling, along with many other sports, has problems with competitors breaking the rules to gain an advantage.  The Sky team, however, promised a brand-new approach with transparency at its core and an absolute zero tolerance approach to drug taking.

For me, that approach meant that their riders would not be taking any performance enhancing medicines.  None.  And if they had to take some sort of supplement, within the rules, then that would be made public.  That, to me at least, is what transparency means.  Also, I would have thought that scrupulous record keeping would be an important component part of their approach.  How could they guarantee transparency otherwise?  How?

Yet, Bradley’s use of a TUE was made public by a hacker – not the team.  And the origin and contents of a package delivered to the team during an important race cannot be traced. 

This is quite simply just not good enough, especially for a team promising what Sky promises.  And, additionally with the recent Chris Froome “incident”, for me and many other cycling fans I would assume their promises lie broken in tatters in the dust.

So, to return to ethics.

The team has quite clearly and unequivocally broken its own code.  But perhaps that’s not surprising in a sport where money from success is the main motivating factor.  That needs to change.  And fast.  Teams have a duty to look after their riders.  They have a duty of care.  They have to have ethics and morals beyond reproach.  Or we’re going to return to the dark days of EPO and fit young professional athletes dying in their sleep.

Dream on.