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He'd have to monstrously stupid to have a shipment of PEDs sent to him at the velodrome by BC and Team Sky's regular pharmaceutical supplier.
Managing the funding of purchasing PEDs and the medical know how to use them most effectively is probably a bigger difficulty for dopers and doping teams than avoiding failing a drug test.
US Postal Service apparently used to sell many of the bikes supplied by Trek to provide 'off the books' funding for their doping.
If we assumed for the sake of hypothesis that Sky were doping, it might be easier for them to get PEDs from their normal pharmaceutical supplier, especially if such purchases could be concealed within all their other purchases. So for every 10 packs of Triamcinolone bought, they get a free box of testosterone patches.
As for monstrously stupid, if people get away with wrong doing for a lengthy period, I think they can start to think they'll never get caught and become careless. Alternatively, the mistake might have been made by the supplier, who was supposed to send that particular package to Freeman at a different address.
You can either believe Sky or not, some people don't for their own reasons or agenda, but at this moment there isn't any "evidence" to suggest this statement isn't true.
There really isn't any [i]evidence[/i] to prove it's true either (no records and the dog ate my laptop). Which is kind of the point. And if this is true why all the lies about it being for Emma Pooley and SBW having left already. Quite frankly, it's just not good enough.
Keep drinking the Koolaid brother... 😉
I find the lack of oversight of the medical 'support' for a team that claims to be whiter than white (bearing in mind this is where historically any doping happens) incredulous. They are taking the piss, this where you start FFS! Everything else fails if you **** this up.
You can either believe Sky or not, some people don't for their own reasons or agenda
That cuts both ways doesn't it? Lots of Armstrong fans could not bear to accept the evidence against him until he himself finally admitted he had doped.
the longer this goes on the worse it looks for them
I do not think we have a smoking gun but we do seem to be in no smoke without fire territory now and they no longer have my unswerving support as its just to much dodgy stuff and benefit of the doubt stuff
It just all seems a bit to US postal
Whether this is a legacy of lance that I am to suspicious or whether it's because they are cheats I dnt know for sure
Whether this is a legacy of lance that I am to suspicious
people have been waiting for years for something like this to happen to Sky. you only have to look at the comments sections on Cycling News to see the conjecture from the trolls and frothy-mouths to see that. look what they did to Lizzie Armistead with her missed tests.
I personally think this is a witch-hunt.
whether I'm right or wrong, either way it's embarrasing for the sport and all that surrounds it. and that is the real shame because it is a magnificent sport with truly exceptional athletes.
people have been waiting for years for something like this to happen to Sky.
Yeah, because some of us don't think cycling has really changed all that much and are fed up to the back teeth of the sky bullshit. Tell me, were [i]you[/i] not pleased when Lance was exposed?
Do you think Lance and Wiggo are on an equal level of cheatiness Metalheart?
I personally think this is a witch-hunt.
Well, yeah, it is
... the question is why everyone at sky [b][u]seems[/u][/b] to have a warty nose and a broomstick
was legal with his TUE and that was correctly administered and every T crossed and dot doted
Except there are no correctly dotted i"s or crossed t's because they don't have any records because the laptop was stolen (and they'd had 3 years to download it).
Taxi25 you seem happy with their rebuttal. I have a couple of issues with it;
It's full of qualifiers "we understand" and "we believe" which completely undermine the associated statements.
It again peddles explanations that are demonstrably BS. They had to fly the flumicil out as Freeman doesn't have prescription rights in France. BZZT wrong again - prescriptions written in an EU member state are valid EU wide, it's the first line on the relevant EU website FFS and a team that competes all over the world will know this.
So that's now 3 'alternative fact' explanations for the jiffy bag (Pooley, Wiggins not there to receive it).
Also, why are Sky/BC buying and storing prescription drugs for Freeman to use in his private practice?
Except there are no correctly dotted i"s or crossed t's because they don't have any records because the laptop was stolen (and they'd had 3 years to download it).
I think you'll find Wiggins TUE's are all above board and documented. The missing laptop refers to other issues.
Yes I do accept Sky's statement "at this point". But I'm not going to far out on a limb. Where obsessed highly motivated people are concerned nothing suprises me.
Individually, none of the incidents in this saga are particularly heinous. A missing record here, a stolen laptop there etc. The problem for me is that we are being asked to believe the best of Sky in a whole series of events - which are starting to look like a pattern IMO.
You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their 'record keeping' would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)
Do you think Lance and Wiggo are on an equal level of cheatiness Metalheart?
Nope, thems was different days. After all, US Postal was apparently the most sophisticated fraud in sporting history... 😆
Blood profile does reign in excesses plus LA was a total vindictive arsehole. And LA 'won' 7 TDF's...
You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their 'record keeping' would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)
Or, you could just not record [i]anything[/i] and then get a third party as drug mule... But then that would be a sophisticated doping regime... 😉
Remember, nobody was expecting to be quizzed on this. Its a retrospective enquiry years after the event. Why leave a trail for someone to unpick later? Problem is that the details crawling out of the woodwork are uncomfortable and there's nothing concrete to refute them with... Strange that, for a team dedicated to being clean, a complete lack of medical records... Astounding in fact.
It's almost as if it was all a façade and they only wanted to [i]appear[/i] to be doing the 'right' thing... saying one thing and doing another.
Remember, nobody was expecting to be quizzed on this. Its a retrospective enquiry years after the event. Why leave a trail for someone to unpick later?
Indeed. Remember that the Sky team were formed, Wiggins joined them, and Freeman and Geert Leinders were employed all before Armstrong was finally busted by USADA.
At that time, it probably seemed to most people involved in professional cycling that you still had to dope to compete/win and that the risks of getting caught were low, despite changes such as the introduction of blood passports.
A Tour win for Sky and Wiggins at that stage was still only a dream, and they could never have imagined the level of success and financial rewards that they and Sky would go on to achieve, and the subsequent levels of scrutiny they would later come under.
So at that stage, they would not have been thinking about faking records etc. as a precaution against the day several years later when a House of Commons committee and the media started asking awkward questions about a jiffy bag sent many years ago.
The trick to any conspiracy is to keep the numbers involved as small as possible*, rather than engage in a major effort to create false records, which is itself highly dangerous because those records are then another thing which will be closely scrutinised for any error or evidence of fraud: better to have no records than fake records which can be proven to be fake.
(* It's interesting that Freeman had responsibility for all pharmaceutical purchases by Sky, as well as being Wiggins' personal doctor in the team.)
You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their 'record keeping' would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)
Between the "truly corrupt" and the saintly are about fifty shades of grey. At best that's where Sky are operating, which is not what they claim to be about.
I think you'll find Wiggins TUE's are all above board and documented. The missing laptop refers to other issues.
fair enough, but I'm deliberately conflating the issues because, thanks to the lack of records, we only have their word for it that the contents of the jiffy bag, administered to Wiggins on a race day, were Flumicil covered by a (above board and documented) TUE. Sapstead has raised the suspicion it was triamcinolone, and as The Cycling Podcast pointed out that would be an outright doping offence, with a 2 year ban which would annul the next 2 years results, which includes the Tour win and Olympic TT gold.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/10/british-cycling-dave-brailsford-reputation-in-tatters-review
The bit about the BC Board basically rewriting the grievance complaint outcome on Jess Varnish is gob-smacking, And Sutton being paid more than his salary to be on 'gardening leave'... car crash stuff. VERY UNFAIR, erm, not.
Who the hell are the British Cycling board members? Who appoints them? Surely they've all got to go after this?
Also listened to the Cycling Podcast last night and thought it was a fair take on the Sky scenario without any of the odd spitefulness that's characterised a lot of the media coverage. I find Richard Moore's voice oddly soothing. 😳
Also, if you dig deeper, it's apparent that the grievance officer who compiled the Varnish report is a woman. Her findings were then reversed by a -mostly - male board. Classy.
Also listened to the Cycling Podcast last night and thought it was a fair take on the Sky scenario without any of the odd spitefulness that's characterised a lot of the media coverage. I find Richard Moore's voice oddly soothing.
I listened to this last night too. Tellingly these extremely well-connected journos don't seem to have any more clue than the rest of us as to what's actually happened.
I think it was my man crush Lionel Birnie who voiced my own thoughts better than I have here: It's not a question of Sky being totally morally in the black or white - it's how far into the grey they went.
And if some of the explanations really were that simple why are they only saying now?
Still sticking with my initial hunch that Wiggo did bend the rules with his corticosteroids and they were a bit cheeky with the tramadol - but I doubt it goes much further than that.
Well, without a whistleblower this will come to nothing.
Wiggo will retain his titles, SDB will probably leave Sky after the TDF & Froome possibly too.
Sky will continue under new leadership & I imagine G will probably become the principal rider.
Reading this [url=2017/03/interview-paul-kimmage-team-skys]Kimmage[/url] makes me realise that a year back I'd have expected DB to meet this head on and be very public in doing so. I'm no longer harbouring that expectation....
your link breaks the internet.
Drat, tried again. Won't be news to those following the saga but I just stumbled across it.
[url= https://cyclingtips.com/2017/03/interview-paul-kimmage-team-skys-charade-exposed/ ]Kimmage[/url]
Froome's new statement being widely reported as "speaks out in support of Dave B", except he doesn't.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/39254063
Sounds to me like he's failed to get team captains seat at another team so decided to speak in support of Brailsford.
Rachel
Rachel, I read between the lines in the same way Dan Roan did, and Froome doesn't actually come out supporting him. He says DB is crucial to TS, which may be true given Murdoch has backed DB, he thanks DB for his previous support, and then it's all waffle about winning back trust blah blah. None of the "he has my full support" "I'm 110% behind him" that the other riders have come out with. It all seems a bit carefully worded - at first glance he's finally stepped up to support him, except not really.
It all seems a bit carefully worded
I dunno, if his real intention is not to support Brailsford, then it seems to have backfired on him because most of the media thinks he has... 😉
He's probably recognising that they have to work together.
Though it's not Davey B who's gonna get cups of wee thrown at him, probably.
Why is the press not giving Wiggins a hard time ?
G and Froome have nothing to answer for .
because other than to cycling geeks Wiggins is old news, history....
They were.
But Froome's just held a press conference.
But Froome's just held a press conference.
Didn't he merely release a 200-word statement I suspect the last thing he'd do is open himself up to unpredictable questioning. Mostly he just wants to win races no?
Professional sport's just an entertainment anyway, other than for the people directly involved in it - competitors, journalists, support staff - It's something of a conceit that it actually matters unless you think it's some sort of low brow moral pantomime and a litmus test for societal ethics rather than just a promotional vehicle for satellite television, sports brands and financial institutions.
From the wonderful people who brought you Brexit: sackloads of medals, Tour de France wins and the continuation of the British Empire by other means.
And as for BC, why are we promoting elite level cycling with public money that could be spent on something useful like cycling-friendly infrastructure or the NHS. Why are we setting criteria for funding based around medal winning then being surprised that our elite sports programmes become ruthlessly fixated on winning medals at all costs?
Roll-up, roll-up, and watch evil, skulking, Sir Dave B in his shadowy marginal gains cloak as he works hard to make sure that people who are good at riding bikes don't have to do a proper job.
Do we just want elite sport to somehow encapsulate a better, fairer world than the real one, and is that why so many people seem so angry about it.
Over the counter cocktails of vitamins. 'Illegal' use of needles. Not reported by Sky due to the perceived fragile mental state of the rider.
The knives are definitely out...
And the circle widens...
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/15/uk-sport-went-easy-british-cycling-medal-factory ]UK Sport told governance unit to ‘go easy’ on British Cycling, says source [/url]
Considering the loss of funding for other sports not considered to be Olympic medal certainties, this could get rather messy.
Didn't he merely release a 200-word statement
Yes, my mistake.
Over the counter cocktails of vitamins. 'Illegal' use of needles. Not reported by Sky due to the perceived fragile mental state of the rider.
Can't see that Sky deserve a kicking over Josh Edmondson's case, unless they were supplying the tramadol.
Very sad for him though, he was such a promising rider and it shows how high the pressure is at that level.
Cha****ng. Personally agree, but suspect that the fact Sky didn't report him to WADA/UKADA will be picked on - from the 'how many more did they cover up?' angle.
Coming super late into the argument without having bothered to read everything already said...but going back to the Triamcilone thing with Wiggo: as a medical person I cannot see how a corticosteroid would in any way be performance enhancing. Corticosteroids are quite different to anabolic steroids. Apart from reducing inflammation (hence use in asthma, although this is a pretty potent drug for that) they also cause muscle breakdown, increased drinking, increased appetite and laying down of fat (not muscle), tiredness, sometimes shortness of breath - in short nothing that would enhance athletic performance. Although it's possible overkill for Wiggo's apparent condition I fail to see how it would enhance performance.
I think mostly the 'evidence' that corticosteroids are PEDs are based on anecdotal stuff, notably David Millar who was using it at the same time as gawd knows what else and other ex-riders in particular. But I don't think there are many credible scientific studies.
There was a good article recently on Cycling Weekly that looked at cycling and asthma:
[url= http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/the-truth-about-cycling-and-asthma-317941 ]http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/the-truth-about-cycling-and-asthma-317941[/url]
It suggests that potentially some asthma treatments are performance enhancers, but also quotes an expert in the field as saying: 'there is not much research in this area. For instance, compared to blood doping, where there is maybe 100 studies [on the performance effects], there is only a handful of studies on glucocorticoids.'
So in evidential terms, a grey area. 'Felt' isn't the same as 'was', in the same way that drunk drivers 'feel' they are driving well and in control. The UCI (I think) is talking about banning corticosteroids, but it would make sense if they commissioned a proper scientific study into them first.
In the latest Cycling Podcast, Richard Moore talks to a few riders and a French journalist. They all seem to think it's a witch hunt, and is blowing a small issue out of all proportion. Richard Moore also seems less reasonable, desperately digging for any dirt he can find. But I do understand that if it was eventually proved that real doping was going on, he'd look pretty stupid if he hadn't been seen to be asking the difficult questions.
EDIT: scrub that!
French journalist. They all seem to think it's a witch hunt, and is blowing a small issue out of all proportion.
An ex-Sky rider (Porte) and an ex-Sky rider and now current Sky DS (Portal). Not particularly independent. The journalist Francois Thomazeau explains French disinterest by comparing it to Festina and the bad old days, and his personal standpoint is that TUE abuse is purely a legal, and not an ethical issue.
desperately digging for any dirt he can find
damned if they do and damned if they don't. BITD journos were criticised for being part of the conspiracy, now Walsh has lost all his crusader credibility by seeming to miss all the shenanigans whilst he was embedded with them, so now pushing and asking questions is either being part of a witch hunt or "desperately digging for dirt" 🙄
Well I thought Porte was pretty open and honest on the subject.
What did he say? Something like "they've maybe been a little bit cheeky with the TUEs"?
That's seems to be about the size of it.
Uci involved now too:
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/17/team-sky-faces-uci-investigation-possible-cover-up-cycling ]team-sky-faces-uci-investigation-possible-cover-up[/url]
Latest sky interview 😉
Brilliant.
(Love that video anyway but that's a great job)
@andylc - regarding how triamcinolone can be performance enhancing
Does seema bit weird but then most folk on highish doses of steroids aren't endurance athletes training & racing at unbelievably high levels. There's evidence to suggest that steroids somehow mobilise fat (see buffalo-humps for example). Who's to say that those mobilised fats are handled the same way by an athlete's body as they are by a mobility-reduced biddy with COPD or whatever. There's also some fat in muscle, (perhaps especially in the same biddies but also even in athletes) and so mobilising that might lead to shrinkage of "muscles" without necessarily losing myocytes ?
/speculation
So marginal gains were rubbish?!? Ok, so what is it then that makes Sky so successful...?
motors in the seat tube obvs.
Hmm.. [url= http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-accused-of-violating-uci-no-needles-policy-with-iv-recovery/ ]more leaks[/url].. Team Sky accused of violating UCI no-needles policy with IV recovery
Sky employing the ex-Phonak doctor??? 2011...
Ho ho ho...
http://road.cc/content/news/221406-new-drink-driving-ban-jonathan-tiernan-locke
What a ****.
"No charges over jiffy bag".
Wiggo is furious and thinks everyone was jolly unfair and there are questions to be answered.
He still says nothing about the triamcimalone though.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/15/team-sky-british-cycling-no-doping-charges-jiffy-bag
Well considering there was no evidence of anything illegal in the jiffy bag. And no real evidence that Wiggins has ever "illegally" taken PED's, it's no suprise no chargers have been brought. Wiggo being lived, well he'll get over it.
I wonder if his asthma has cleared up since he retired.
In the statement, Sapstead insisted that Ukad’s investigation had been “thorough and extensive”. The head of Ukad added: “[b]Our investigation was hampered by a lack of accurate medical records being available at British Cycling[/b].“This is a serious concern. In this case the matter was further complicated by the crossover between personnel at British Cycling and Team Sky. We have referred some information to the GMC, and will cooperate with the GMC as necessary in respect of that information.”
Ukad’s efforts to get to the truth were hindered by Dr Richard Freeman, the British Cycling doctor who administered the package, being unable to give evidence to the inquiry, citing ill health.
Lack of proof is not proof of innocence....
Yes, Wiggo was dangerously close to Lance "never tested positive" territory with his statement.
He should know better. I guess he's bitter cos he thought it was ok to play the system - perhaps with BC guidance - but now feels he's been betrayed by public opinion.
Sutton basically admits the TUEs were doping but within the rules as he got tame doctors to sign them off
Sir Bradley Wiggins’s former coach Shane Sutton has told a BBC documentary that he regarded therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) as a legitimate way of finding “marginal gains” while staying within anti-doping rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/18/shane-sutton-bradley-wiggins-tues
An unsurprising insight into Sutton’s view on it there. If you can do something that gives you an edge and doesn’t explicitly break the rules (even if most would see it as gaming the rules) then it’s all ok.
An unsurprising statement from Wiggins too claiming some sort of vindication where the verdict is actually pretty damning of BC processes and inconclusive. Attack the whistleblower is something we’ve seen all too often though it would be good to have more clarity around the actual accusations.
Sir Bradley Wiggins’s former coach Shane Sutton has told a BBC documentary that he regarded therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) as a legitimate way of finding “marginal gains” while staying within anti-doping rules.
Hardly the intended theraputic use in that case is it? Morally cheating but not legally cheating. Pro road racing has hardly changed, they're just more subtle with PEDs now. The no needles, whistle-clean team are at it in any way they can as long as the records can be lost or they can say it's a grey area and Froome's efforts if clean are tainted by association.
There’s two issues here for me:
The legal side, if they’ve operated within the rules, then that’s the end of it, nothing to discuss.
However, the moral/ethical side was a big claim for team Sky, and this is something they should be held accountable for.
Pro road racing has hardly changed, they're just more subtle with PEDs now.
Just to be pedantic, it's not 'now', it was six years ago. Since then the number of TUEs issued in elite cycling has fallen drastically, so I'd be a little wary of using 2011 events to paint a picture of the current situation.
For context, some of those will have been issued in extreme circumstances when riders undergo emergency operations - Luke Rowe after he shattered his leg recently for example - when the anaesthetics, pain killers etc breach doping regs but are clearly needed.
Just providing some context.
This isn't really any different to the Paradise paper issues, is it? If the loopholes exist, people will use them. Marginal gains, financially or performance related, are still gains, so those with an absence of a good mroal/ethical nature will jump all over it. It's disappointing, but not surprising.
Marginal gains, financially or performance related, are still gains, so those with an absence of a good mroal/ethical nature will jump all over it. It's disappointing, but not surprising.
It is different because essentially elite sport is still just a glorified entertainment except for the people directly involved in it. Ultimately it doesn't really matter, unless you believe that sport somehow sets a moral and ethical tone for an entire society, in which case we're in trouble.
The idea that it really 'matters' is a conceit perpetrated by sports journalists, who have to pretend it matters to carry on writing about it wth any degree of conviction and blowhard MPs, who use it as an opportunity to grandstand in public. Damian Collins anybody?
The loss of public revenue from tax avoidance, on the other hand, is genuinely important and undermines our society at a point where the NHS and other public services are underfunded and struggling.
So I guess I'm saying that while I get where you're coming from, there's no genuine equivalence between the two. One genuinely matters in the big sense, the other is a relative irrelevance.
Just providing some context.
Cortisone use is what both David Millar and Michael Rassmussen claimed was essential to their doping programmes and what a certain lance Armstrong was popped for in '99 before magicing up a backdated TUE.
Wiggins doc at Garmin didn't feel the need to proscribe it.
Asked if “finding the gains might mean getting the TUE”, Sutton repeated the question, before adding: “Yes, because the rules allow you to do that.”
Back in 2011/12 this is what was done. But if you are claiming to be clean??? Nah, it was just bullshit and now they've admitted it.
Where is Wiggin's medical records? "Missing". Where's the doctor "ill"... Why did they have at least three different stories about the 'package'?
And yet Sky are 'meticulous', 'no stone unturned'. Its almost like they have something to hide!
/ Just providing some context.
I'd be a little wary of using 2011 events to paint a picture of the current situation.
Except of course this is [i]exactly[/i] the period that Froome made his jump from about to be let go domestique to GT GC 2nd places...
And yet Sky are 'meticulous', 'no stone unturned'. Its almost like they have something to hide!
It is comical that. An organisation that mines huge amounts of data for marginal gains and could tell you what Wiggins had for breakfast that morning can’t tell you what medication got delivered.
Cortisone use is what both David Millar and Michael Rassmussen claimed was essential to their doping programmes and what a certain lance Armstrong was popped for in '99 before magicing up a backdated TUE.
I'm not arguing with you, so please don't react as it I am, but is there objective evidence that triamcinolone is a PED? Some of the listed side-effects like muscle wastage probably aren't, but a lot of the stuff about it seems to be anecdotal from known dopers. Are there sports science studies that back up the anecdotes I mean.
Muscle wastage... if the kg goes down faster than the watts, which is the anecdotal evidence, then most definitely an advantage.
Scientific studies, plenty.. a quick google...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17805102/
What's more comical is that so many folk still believe them. No wonder they've had to remove the word "gullible" from the dictionary.It is comical that. An organisation that mines huge amounts of data for marginal gains and could tell you what Wiggins had for breakfast that morning can’t tell you what medication got delivered.
It is comical that. An organisation that mines huge amounts of data for marginal gains and could tell you what Wiggins had for breakfast that morning can’t tell you what medication got delivered.
All cycling teams do this. They're operating usually two, occasionally three teams simultaneously at various events around the world.
I know a manager of a domestic UK team (not Sky!) who asked a mate to fly out to a race with a spare bike when they broke one as (for that destination) it was cheaper and quicker to fly a person with baggage than it was to have the bike shipped on its own. There could have been anything in the bike box, the guy taking it just knew that he had a free 5 day holiday!
So he lied at check-in?
Crazy legs, not saying the practice is exceptional in some way. What is exceptional is the lack of evidence and the comical and shambolic attempts at explaining it away (with more than a whiff of cover up) from an organisation claiming it operates at the pinnacle of professionalism for the sport.
That’s what i’d be complaining about if I was Wiggins instead of complaining about UKADA and demanding to know who the whistleblower was. Instead he defends the team and doctors.
Shame the admission had to come from Sutton after his exit rather than Wiggo or Dave B.
If they'd owned it and been more frank I think they'd be in a better place now.
Sutton’s admission and TUE is one thing, Jiffy bag is another.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/nov/15/jiffy-gate-ukad-investigation-sir-bradley-wiggins
Even Wiggins’s statement in response to Ukad closing his case was unsatisfactory. On the one hand, he criticised the medical team around him for not doing their jobs and keeping proper records. On the other, he praised Freeman. Like a lot of things about this case, it does not quite add up.
is there objective evidence that triamcinolone is a PED?
I don't know, maybe the fact its a banned substance might have something to say about it... But I'm sure it doesn't [i]really[/i] do a thing... 🙄
I think there's quite likely a fundamental difference between long-term dosing of a glucocorticoid in a subject, and brief exposure, possibly to higher levels than we'd "allow" for longer use (there are papers that suggest that short use may do the opposite of what long term use does, at least in some respects.
As a result, what many books will say are the (side) effects of steroids on muscle or fat could be misleading, as they're based on patients (generally old, unfit, with chronic diseases or else with a chronic overproduction of their own steroid) and not intensively exercising athletes
I doubt any athlete would use steroids in the long term. Just, you know, when they needed them
That’s what i’d be complaining about if I was Wiggins instead of complaining about UKADA and demanding to know who the whistleblower was. Instead he defends the team and doctors.
To be fair he actually said this:
"I put ultimate trust in the team around me to do their jobs in their specific field of expertise to the same standard that I would expect of myself on the bike. Had the infrastructure for precise record keeping being in place this investigation would never have started."