The pressure intensified on Sir Bradley Wiggins after a former team doctor questioned the decision by cycling’s authorities to let him use a banned substance in his last three Grand Tours.
Wiggins has been facing questions to explain why he needed the steroid, triamcinolone, before the 2011 and 2012 Tour de France races and the 2013 Giro d’Italia after Russian hackers revealed his Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) forms for the controversial drug last week.
While the 2012 Tour winner, who has denied any wrongdoing, has said the three intramuscular injections were authorised to treat lifelong asthma symptoms, experts have insisted doctors should have been able to manage his illness with standard inhalers.
In an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, Prentice Steffen, team doctor at Wiggins’s former team Garmin Slipstream, said he was ‘surprised’ he was prescribed the drug, adding that it ‘didn’t look good’.
Wiggins finished fourth in the 2009 Tour as a Garmin rider and did not take triamcinolone in that race, and only started to be prescribed the drug as a Grand Tour rider with Team Sky.
Steffen said: ‘I was surprised to see that there were TUEs documented for intramuscular triamcinolone just before three major events — two Tours de France and one Giro d’Italia.
‘You do have to think it is kind of coincidental that a big dose of intramuscular long-acting corticosteroids would be needed at that . . . exact time before the most important race of the season.
‘I would say certainly now, in retrospect, it doesn’t look good.’
Steffen questioned the decision of Team Sky and the medical staff in supporting Wiggins’ applications for exemptions. And former pro cyclist Michael Rasmussen, who was convicted of drug abuse, told the BBC the use of triamcinolone ahead of major races seemed ‘suspicious’.
‘Just looking at the drugs and looking at the dates of the injections it looks very much like something that could have happened 10 years ago when I was riding for general classification in the Tour de France,’ said Rasmussen.
Wiggins has opted to give a pre-recorded interview to Andrew Marr, to be broadcast on the BBC tomorrow.
Wiggins’ representative did not respond to questions from Newsnight but in a previous statement he said: ‘Everyone knows Brad suffers from asthma, his medical treatment is British Cycling and International Cycling Union approved and like all Team GB athletes he follows regulations.’
Yesterday the Russia-based Fancy Bears hackers released the TUE history of six more Britons — Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Nile Wilson, Richard Chambers, Saskia Clark, Sophie Ainsworth and Steve Cummings — and Mo Farah’s training partner Galen Rupp.
© Daily Mail