London - Richard Freeman, the British Cycling doctor at the heart of the Team Sky jiffy-bag controversy, and former coach Simon Cope could be among those called to a second select committee hearing.
MPs will wait for the conclusion of UK Anti-Doping’s inquiry, which is looking into the medical package ordered by Dr Freeman, then at Team Sky, and couriered by Cope for Sir Bradley Wiggins at the end of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine.
But if UKAD have also not been provided with documentary evidence of what was in the package, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee will look at calling more witnesses. To date, Freeman’s claim that the package contained nothing more than a legal decongestant has not been supported by any paperwork.
This week it emerged British Cycling bosses have been unable to meet the select committee request of December 19 for documents to be supplied. This is despite Bob Howden, the British Cycling president, telling the committee that there should be files on all medication supplied from their own store at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester.
In addition, details of Cope’s expenses and travel documents cast further doubt on the reasons provided by Team Sky and British Cycling for his trip to France.
Initially, Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford even claimed Cope went to La Toussuire to see Emma Pooley, despite Team Sky business at the Dauphine being shown on Cope’s expenses forms.
Never mind the fact Cope took four days to deliver medication to a supposedly ill Wiggins when the product could have been bought for €8 at a French pharmacy and the whole trip cost £600.
Select committee chairman Damian Collins MP was scathing yesterday. Talking to the BBC, he said: "What we hoped we might get from British Cycling is a simple paper trail that says Team Sky requested a drug to be used by one of their athletes.
"Here’s the receipt, if you like, here’s the prescription, that we’ve kept because something was requested from us and couriered out by us. And it should be really simple to see that. But clearly that paper trail doesn’t exist.
"We are still waiting for UKAD to provide their report. My concern about the investigation is it seems to be difficult to get precise records of what was in this package, why it was ordered and the detail that you would want to know. It’s good practice — or should be — that these sorts of records are kept and therefore it’s very easy to identify what’s been couriered, what’s been requested.
"The reason there’s a debate about this package is because did this package contain a corticosteroid that Bradley Wiggins could have legally taken out of competition, or was it something else?
"Why get a British Cycling coach to courier (a legal decongestant) from Manchester via London to Geneva when you could have just bought it over the counter? And that’s why, for a lot of people, it just looks odd. So can (British Cycling) just reassure us they’ve got the records and they know that it was all above board?’
Howden was asked yesterday on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme if British Cycling have records to prove what was in the package for Wiggins and he was evasive seven times.
One one occasion he replied: "We’re obviously not able to comment on the actual, exact medical requirements that were in place because they are issues between doctor and athlete and it’s a matter UKAD are looking into.
"The medical records are under the control of UKAD. The whole medical room scenario at Manchester is under lockdown and under control by UKAD. So we can’t physically comment in respect of what that information is until UKAD release that data."
Nicole Cooke, the 2008 Olympic road race champion, waded into the controversy on Thursday, echoing concerns expressed in the March 2011 UK Sport-funded Deloitte report into British Cycling and its close relationship with Team Sky.
The report has never been made public but it was sent by British Cycling to the select committee and Sportsmail has now seen a copy. It highlights the "reputational risk" to British Cycling and UK Sport if there ever was a "doping scandal within Team Sky".
Outgoing British Cycling chief executive Ian Drake noted in his review that the creation of Team Sky by Brailsford and then head coach Shane Sutton could mean "the focus on non-men’s endurance programmes had been reduced as a result of Team Sky, in particular Para Cycling, Mountain Bike, Women’s, Academy, Development and Talent programmes".
Yet four months after the report was published internally, Drake was allowing Cope, the elite women’s endurance coach, to act as a courier for Team Sky.
Cooke wrote in The Guardian: "Why did the top management deem it acceptable to use the publicly funded national women’s team road manager, Simon Cope, in the role of a basic courier?
"As the saga developed this year, Cope came up with information entirely new and disturbing to me. He said that in 2011 he had 'been working with Sky a lot and been running training camps with Brad. I spent a month in Mallorca with Brad and the lads motor-pacing'. In early 2011 I was attempting to get Cope to run a single training camp for the women riders he was meant to be managing."
Cope is now the Team Wiggins boss who has claimed the medical package had ‘nothing to do with Brad’.
The Deloitte report also said there would be a "reduction in the sharing of resource with British Cycling". Changes were made after the 2012 Olympics, with Brailsford leaving British Cycling to focus on Team Sky and Sutton becoming technical director at British Cycling. It said in the 2011 season "Sutton will work almost exclusively with the GB Cycling Team". However, in 2011 Sutton, of course, was personal coach to Wiggins.
Team Sky and British Cycling officials have denied wrongdoing.