The pressure on Team Sky Principal Dave Brailsford "has intensified" after Int'l Cycling Union (UCI) President Brian Cookson criticized how Team Sky has "dealt with the fallout from Bradley Wiggins’s controversial use of medical exemptions for a banned substance," according to John Westerby of the LONDON TIMES. Cookson, who has been in charge of the UCI since '13, feels that Sky pushed "to the very limit of the rules" in applying for therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) to enable Wiggins to have corticosteroid injections before three of the "biggest races of his career." Cookson: "It’s disappointing we’re in a situation where these revelations are coming out. The answers coming from certain individuals, certain witnesses, have seemed to make the situation less clear rather than more clear." There is "no doubt that the crisis of credibility engulfing Team Sky," which has led to calls for Brailsford’s resignation, is causing "considerable disquiet in the sport’s corridors of power." Since becoming its president in '13, Cookson "has been at the forefront of reforming the UCI’s tainted image with regard to anti-doping" (LONDON TIMES, 10/18). REUTERS reported UK Anti-Doping "has not shared many details but it has been reported the investigation also concerned the alleged delivery of a medical package" to team Sky in June '11 after the Critérium du Dauphiné and before that year’s Tour. Cookson: "We shouldn’t be surprised when elite sports teams push to the very limit of the rules. Perhaps that’s what happened here, but the rules appear to have been abided by" (REUTERS, 10/18).
