The reputations of British Cycling, Team Sky, Bradley Wiggins and, by association, every contemporary British cyclist were all on the line in front of the culture, media and sport committee before Christmas. I felt for the MPs. They kept asking a very simple question: “Can you tell us what was in the Jiffy bag?”

Time and again, as they sought to drag out answers, the MPs summed up the verbiage with a succinct response: “I am not sure whether that was a yes or a no.” I had so many flashbacks during those three hours, recalling my identical frustration in trying to deal with British Cycling.

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Bob Howden, the president, and Dr George Gilbert, a board member, showed little clue as to the nature of the process they were managing, the activities of their employees or the facilities; Shane Sutton was ever boastful – “I authorised the trip” – and Sir David Brailsford delivered carefully-rehearsed phrases.

At the end of the three hours we were informed by Brailsford that the mysterious content of the Jiffy bag was a €10 “decongestant” that was available over the counter in any of eight pharmacies located within 5km of where the team bus was parked in France. It was an answer that raised even more questions than we had before, especially now that we know Simon Cope spent two days travelling to deliver it.

The apparent lack of knowledge of so many in the support staff did not chime with my own experiences; medical privacy was an early loss in maintaining best health as we all discussed the optimal way forward from any injury.

I can usefully add other dimensions. Three of the four witnesses before the committee have just spent six months locked into an investigation asking: “Does sexism exist in British Cycling?”

Why did the top management deem it acceptable to use the publicly funded national women’s team road manager, Cope, in the role of a basic courier?

As the saga developed this year, Cope came up with information entirely new and disturbing to me. In an interview he said that in 2011 he had “been working with Sky a lot and been running training camps with Brad. I spent a month in Mallorca with Brad and the lads motor-pacing.”

Throughout early 2011 I was attempting to get Cope to run a single training camp for the women riders he was meant to be managing. At the world championships in 2010 I had been fourth and lack of teamwork was a factor in not getting a better result. For 2011 I hoped to regain my title of 2008. Of course we were also looking forward to London 2012, where I would be the defending champion.

Eventually I got Cope to agree to a camp to prepare for the world championships in Copenhagen and we both proposed it to Brailsford and Sutton – the same pair who apparently think it fine to fly a courier with a €10 med 1,000 miles across Europe.

I have the email and Sutton’s response turning down the training camp suggestion. Nothing was put in its place, and so the women went to another world championships without having conducted a single team camp. Needless to say, our team preparation was insufficient.

On the Wednesday evening prior to the race on Saturday, Cope chaired a team meeting and we agreed one set of tactics. On the Friday night Shane, who had neither attended the earlier meeting nor watched a race I had ridden all season, convened another team meeting and changed tactics for the finale of the type we had never practised before.

I disagreed with the tactical plan. It was never going to work given our lack of preparation. Others were less sure of their selection and many had hopes for London 2012 nine months away. Therefore I was the single one voicing protest.

Without support, I came fourth again. Lizzie Deignan, the protected rider in the new plan, was delayed by a crash, when positioned in the wrong half of the race in the closing miles. After the post-race drug test, I came back to the hotel and went to my bedroom. Within seconds, Shane marched in. Behind him the whole team, along with Cope, were ushered round my bed. My room-mate was stunned. Seconds before she had been relaxing on the bed flicking through a magazine, now I had arrived and everyone was in the room to witness Shane berating me in public that it was my fault Lizzie had not won and his recently conceived ‘masterplan’ had not achieved success.

Sutton declined when asked by one of the MPs if he wanted to apologise for his use of inappropriate and discriminatory language to women, as was upheld against him in the recent British Cycling inquiry. Sutton was quick to point out that he had not called a female rider a “bitch” to her face. He only referred to female riders as “bitches” when talking about them with other men. The MPs could not get an apology from him.

Sutton was acting exactly like he had over a decade before at Welsh Cycling. The bigger question is: who is it that entrusts him with responsibilities his character-set is so unsuited to? Earlier this year British Cycling’s then chief executive, Ian Drake, had no idea that Brailsford was paying the wholly publicly funded national cycling coach, Sutton, a significant retainer for his services to Team Sky.

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The MPs were good enough to ask if the public purse was refunded for the €10 meds supplied from British Cycling and perhaps an air ticket. It now appears Sky paid Cope’s expenses. A more pertinent question for me might be: could anyone quantify the impact Cope’s moonlighting away from his publicly funded role, and the failure to conduct a single camp for the British women’s road team he was meant to manage, had on our failure in Copenhagen?

Is British Cycling, and Team Sky that was created by its staff, endemically sexist and as incompetent and parochial as it appeared in that Commons questioning session? Is the lead coach professional? Do those around that post make professional and ethically correct decisions?

Even after sustained questioning by MPs, British Cycling has many questions to answer.