Wiggo’s ex teammate: Team Sky covered up injections
He admits giving self vitamin jabs
A FORMER teammate of cycling champ Sir Bradley Wiggins has admitted secretly injecting himself with vitamins – and claimed Team Sky covered it up.
Josh Edmondson, 24, told how he began intravenously taking a cocktail of performance-boosting substances after being picked for a major race.
The vitamins themselves were legal but the jabs breached a ban on needles by cycling’s authorities.
Edmondson admitted he used jabs preparing for the Vuelta a Espana in 2014 because he saw it as a way of “closing the gap a little without doping”.
He told how he bought substances including carnitine and folic acid in Italy, along with kit such as clips and syringes.
Speaking to the BBC, he said: “I’d just inject two or three times a week maybe. Especially when I wanted to lose weight, I’d inject the carnitine more often because it was very effective.
“It dawned on me while I was doing it how extreme it was, putting the needle in and making sure there are no bubbles because if there is air in it, it can give you a heart attack. It is a very daunting thing to be doing.”
While Edmondson was riding at the Tour of Poland a teammate took photos of the vitamins and equipment and reported it to their management.
Edmondson, who said he felt “panicstricken”, was confronted via Skype by Team Sky’s then head of medicine Dr Steve Peters. Edmondson claimed: “He said, ‘There’s been an incident’ and I broke down. I was crying.” The cyclist alleged there was a “cover-up” of the incident afterwards by senior management.
But Team Sky said it was not reported because Edmondson denied using the items when confronted.
Dr Peters insisted there was no cover-up but that he had fears for Edmondson’s mental state because he “fell apart at the seams” and said things that “alarmed” him.
Team Sky said they took legal advice at the time and were under no obligation to report the case to authorities.
The team has recently been dogged by controversy, including questions over the delivery of a mystery package to Olympic hero Sir Bradley, with teammate Chris Froome apologising to fans.