The courier who took a package to Team Sky in June 2011 has no idea of its contents.
The Daily Mail last week reported that UK Anti-Doping was investigating Team Sky and Bradley Wiggins over the contents of a package allegedly delivered by British Cycling women’s team manager Simon Cope to Team Sky at the conclusion of the Criterium du Dauphine stage race in France on June 12, 2011.
Press Association Sport understands that Wiggins and his representatives have received no notification from UKAD and believe the 36-year-old is not a subject of the investigation.
Wiggins on Saturday welcomed the UKAD investigation, while British Cycling and Team Sky say they are co-operating.
Dave Brailsford had reportedly been asked to explain why Cope was in France on June 12, 2011 and The Daily Mail reported that the coach said Cope was there to see Emma Pooley.
But Pooley was actually racing in the Basque Country in Spain on that date, finishing fourth in the Iurreta-Emakumeen Bira stage race.
Cope, now a sporting director for Team Wiggins, said he was asked to deliver a package to Dr Richard Freeman, then the Team Sky doctor and now British Cycling team doctor.
Cope told cyclingnews.com: “It was just an envelope, a Jiffy bag, a small Jiffy bag.
“I don’t have a clue what was in there. It came from British Cycling. It was for the doctor. It was nothing to do with Brad. I gave it to Richard Freeman.
“This parcel was asked for, for Richard Freeman. It could have been nasal strips or band-aids, I really don’t know.”
Determining the contents of the specific package will be central to the investigation, which could take some time.
UKAD will not give specifics of the probe, only stating that it is investigating “allegations of wrongdoing within cycling” and confirming that two of its investigators met with British Cycling staff at the Manchester Velodrome last Friday.
Team Sky, launched with a zero-tolerance policy to doping in 2010, “strongly refute” any allegation of wrongdoing.
Press Association Sport understands Team Sky and Brailsford have tried to ascertain the events of June 2011, gathering written statements from staff present at the time and documentation to piece together the events.
Freeman was the Team Sky doctor in June 2011 and initiated Wiggins’s application for three therapeutic use exemptions for an otherwise banned drug.
Data stolen by hackers from files held by the World Anti-Doping Agency showed Wiggins received three TUEs for anti-inflammatory drug triamcinolone – a substance which has a history of abuse in cycling – on the eve of the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France and 2013 Giro d’Italia.
Wiggins became the first British winner of the Tour in 2012.