Ex British Cycling and Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman to appeal being struck off Medical Register

Ex-British Cycling and Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman, who was last month struck off the Medical Register for ordering testosterone patches “knowing or believing” that they were intended for an athlete to improve their performance is reported to have launched an appeal against the decision.

His name was erased from the Medical Register last month after a tribunal ruled that his ability to practise medicine had been impaired due to his misconduct, with the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service saying that he had constructed an “elaborate falsehood” in an attempt to “conceal his conduct.”

> Ex-Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman struck off Medical Register

Freeman, who has denied being a “doping doctor” is reported by the Guardian to be lodging his appeal today with the High Court in Manchester, although the hearing will not commence before November – four years after the General Medical Council first started building its case against him.

He joined British Cycling in 2009 and was the doctor at the centre of the ‘Jiffy bag’ investigation regarding a package couriered from the governing body’s Manchester headquarters to the French Alps during the 2011 Criterium du Dauphiné, won by Bradley Wiggins.

Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford told a parliamentary enquiry in 2016 that the package contained the decongestant Fluimucil, which is not banned, to treat Wiggins’ allergies.

However, there were widespread suspicions that the package in fact contained triamcinolone, which is banned in competition, a drug for which Wiggins did not have a Therapeutic Use Exemption at the time, although he would obtain one prior to that year’s Tour de France.

In 2017, UK Anti-doping (UKAD) opened an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at British Cycling and Team Sky, focusing on the Jiffy bag, but closed its probe after being unable to determine what was in the package.

In February this year, ahead of the MPTS handing down its decision in the Freeman case, UKAD charged Freeman with possession of prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods, as well as tampering or attempted tampering with any part of doping control, and provisionally suspended him from all sport.