London (AFP) - A successful British amateur who failed to make the grade at Team Sky said they did not report him for breaking cycling's "no needles" rule, provoking fresh scrutiny of the under pressure outfit.

Josh Edmondson, who moved to Team Sky in 2013 before leaving by mutual consent in 2014, told the BBC he had admitted to team management to injecting himself with a cocktail of legal vitamins.

The use of a needle would contravene a policy laid down by the International Cycling Union and Team Sky's own strict rules.

It comes with Team Sky and their boss Dave Brailsford embroiled in a controversy over what was in a jiffy bag delivered to the team doctor at the 2012 Criterium du Dauphine for then star rider Bradley Wiggins - there has been an allegation it was a banned corticosteroid.

The team said it was a legal decongestant.

Sky, one of cycling's leading teams, say they did not report Edmondson - whose stash of vials and syringes was found by a team-mate - because he denied injecting himself when they confronted him during the 2014 season.

Edmondson also admitted to becoming addicted to the legal painkiller tramadol, which plunged him into bouts of severe depression.

Edmondson accused Sky of a cover-up over his self-injections, an allegation they deny.

"I think that would have meant a bigger admission for them," he told the BBC. "They'd have had to say publicly a kid was injecting. Injecting anything's bad.

"It's not like they were banned substances, but injecting is against the rules, to self-administer anything, I believe."