No doping charges in UK cycling probe but methods criticized
LONDON — No charges will be brought over the doping investigation that cast a cloud over the reputation of British cycling and Bradley Wiggins, the country’s first Tour de France champion and most decorated Olympian.
But Britain’s anti-doping agency did express concern Wednesday that its investigation was hampered by the failure to retain accurate medical records in a sport that prided itself on meticulous precision planning as the country became an Olympic superpower.
Wiggins denounced what he perceived as a “malicious witch hunt” and the failure of U.K. Anti-Doping to completely exonerate him of wrongdoing.
The case centred on the contents of a medical package dispatched from the shared British Cycling-Team Sky medical facility in Manchester to Wiggins at the 2011 Dauphine Libere race in France, a key pre-Tour race. It was couriered by a British Cycling employee despite Wiggins competing for the Sky team in the race, a year before winning the Tour de France.