Dave Brailsford speaks to The Cycling Podcast

October 16 | The Cycling Podcast met Sir Dave Brailsford to quiz him on the controversies engulfing Team Sky since the Fancy Bears hackers revealed Sir Bradley Wiggins had used a corticosteroid called triamcinolone to treat asthma and pollen allergies before three grand tours, including the 2012 Tour de France, which he won.

Although the drug was apparently used in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Agency rules, by applying for therapeutic use exemption to permit the treatment, the timing of the applications – just before three of the biggest races of Wiggins' career – has provoked questions, particularly in light of the founding principles of Team Sky, which were a zero tolerance approach to doping and a desire to win the Tour with a clean British rider.

And Daily Mail reports that a British Cycling staff member, Simon Cope, had travelled to a race in France, the Dauphiné, with a 'medical package' just a couple of weeks before Wiggins and Team Sky's doctors applied for the first TUE has prompted further questions about the team's ethics.

Apart from an interview with the BBC's Dan Roan, Brailsford has been silent as the controversies continued to rage. On Friday evening, he met with Richard Moore and Lionel Birnie of The Cycling Podcast to ask about Wiggins and Team Sky's use of TUEs, the contents of the package couriered to France and other issues including the ethics of using legal substances such as the powerful painkiller tramadol.

The Telegraph Cycling Podcast is supported by Rapha and Eurosport.