Under-fire Dave Brailsford hits out at UK anti-doping chief as he refuses to step down from Team Sky role

Brailsford said he will not be "pulled down into the weeds" as questions persist over Team Sky's conduct

Dave Brailsford and his team have come under immense scrutiny in recent months (Getty)

The Team Sky head Sir Dave Brailsford hit out at the head of the organisation committed to fighting doping in the UK on Tuesday, accusing him of a lack of professional judgement and insisting he will not be “pulled down into the weeds” with him.

Brailsford has been under intense scrutiny since he told a parliamentary select committee last month he had been told by Team Sky’s doctor that a jiffy bag flown out to Sir Bradley Wiggins at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphiné contained a legal decongestant called Fluimucil. A full three months after launching its investigation into the package, UK Anti-Doping has still not been able to verify that claim, and MPs are threatening to hold another hearing to get to the bottom of the mystery.

David Kenworth, the outgoing UKAD chairman has since described the evidence given by Brailsford and other cycling chiefs last month as “extraordinary” and “very disappointing” and warned that his organisation “will not give up” until it has found out what was in the package.

But on Tuesday, Brailsford – who set up Team Sky as an outfit which would be beyond reproach and question over doping – told the Press Association said Kenworth intervention was inappropriate and wrong. "The only extraordinary thing, I think, was the chairman of UKAD's comments the other day when he commented about an on-going investigation," Brailsford said.

"As an organisation like UKAD and for the chair to say it is an extraordinary thing - that's the extraordinary thing in itself. Most fair-minded people recognise that if there's a process in place to try to establish exactly what went on then we should wait till the end of that process, see what the findings are, see where we are at that moment.

"Once that's all established, then we can move on from there. To try to dive in halfway through and undermine that process is not... for me, I don't think most fair-minded people would think that was the best way of doing it.”

Though it seemed Brailsford’s revelation that the much discussed contents of the Jiffy bag were a mere decongestant seemed draw a line under the controversy, his disclosure has failed to take away the question of why a British Cycling employee was sent hundreds of miles across Europe to deliver the product, Fluimucil, which was freely available at local chemists, at a price of eight euros. It then transpired that there is no audit trail to prove what Brailsford told the DCMS select committee about the Fluimicil.

But Brailsford insisted on Tuesday: "I'm not going to get pulled down into the weeds as it were. I'm just going to respect that process, do the right thing and then when that's concluded we can all move on.”

Asked if might step down, he suggested there was no such plan. "Look, I've been doing this a long time and I've been focusing about getting through the winter and getting to this point,” he said. "I'm looking forward to getting cracking into the new season and see whether we can improve on our results so far. I'm looking forward to the season and really getting involved in all of that. I'm pretty sure they'll have to conclude their investigation [into the package] and I'm sure that they will report the conclusion of what their findings are."