LONDON – Ex-Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman ordered banned testosterone knowing or believing it was to be given to a rider for the purposes of doping, a medical tribunal found on Friday.
Freeman accepted 18 of 22 charges against him relating to the ordering of a package of Testogel to British Cycling headquarters in 2011, but denied the central charge regarding its purpose.
After a hearing lasting more than two years, decisions on the contested charges were issued by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
Freeman claimed the testosterone had been ordered to treat former performance director Shane Sutton's erectile dysfunction, which the Australian strenuously denied.
The verdict will raise questions over the past practices employed by the British team, who have been dominant at recent Olympics.
Freeman, who was simultaneously employed by British Cycling and Team Sky -- now Ineos Grenadiers -- between 2009 and 2015, resigned from British Cycling in 2017 because of ill health. He had already left Team Sky.
The tribunal will sit again next week to determine what sanctions Freeman will face and whether he will be deemed unfit to continue to practice medicine.
It was announced last month that he is also facing two UK Anti-Doping charges relating to the ordering of the testosterone.
AFP