Dave Brailsford answeres questions at the Team Sky press conference on the Tour's second rest day
Team Sky's Dave Brailsford
Team Sky's Dave Brailsford talks with members of the media
Team Sky's Dave Brailsford and Bradley Wiggins in the team bus at the 2013 Giro d'Italia
Team Sky's Dave Brailsford and Bradley Wiggins at the 2012 Tour de France
Dave Brailsford, the principal of Team Sky and former performance director of British Cycling, has been summoned to appear before members of parliament in Britain as part of an inquiry into doping in sport.
Chief among the topics on which Brailsford will be required to provide answers is Bradley Wiggins and the three Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) he availed of to take the powerful corticosteroid triamcinolone acentonide ahead of the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.
Brailsford broke the Team Sky silence in the wake of those revelations to defend the team's procedure behind the TUEs – which saw no formal anti-doping rules broken – and insist that the team is "100 per cent a clean operation". A week or so later, details emerged of a 'mystery' medical package couriered from the UK to the Team Sky bus in France by a British Cycling employee during the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. This is also likely to be an area of MP's questioning of Brailsford.
"Sir Dave Brailsford has been one of the most senior figures in British cycling over the last 10 years and we thought it important to speak to him as part of our inquiry into how the sport has handled anti-doping issues and the ethics around TUEs," Damian Collins, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee's chairman, told The Times.
"We are now talking to Team Sky about a date when he can come and speak to us."
At the end of last month it emerged that MP's were looking to interview members of British Cycling, which, on top of the mystery package, has also faced scrutiny over allegations that tramadol was ‘freely’ handed around the 2012 Road World Championships team.
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According to The Times, the British Cycling’s chairman, Bob Howden, and the head of its ethics commission, George Gilbert, will appear alongside World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president, Craig Reedie at a Select Committee hearing on December 19.
