The British Cycling Crisis

It’s not been much fun inside British Cycling recently it’s fair to say. Discrimination and bullying claims, infighting and resignations. Is it really that bad within BC?

With the man at the centre of it all; Shane Sutton, now resigning and claims that British Cycling is well and truly broken it seems a far cry from the seemingly endless success that British Cycling has enjoyed over recent years. So at what point did the wheels (what size?) come off?

Shane Sutton has been a key figure in the success of the British Cycling team at the Beijing and London Olympics and was a key player at Team Sky during 2010 to 2012. Bradley Wiggins certainly benefited from Sutton’s mentoring skills at the 2012 Tour de France with Wiggins dominating that particular year. When Sutton took the top job at British Cycling as Technical Director in 2014 things initially didn’t get off to the best start when the team took just three silver medals at the 2015 World Championships (a 14 year low) but all was forgiven when they once again dominated the 2016 Champs and topped the medals table.

Behind the success however it seemed that not all was rosy once the medal celebrations were over. The first warning shot was fired by Jess Varnish when she, amongst other claims, accused Sutton of sexist remarks including being told to “go and have a baby” when her contract with BC was not renewed. Initially it seemed that sour grapes were at play and that had it not been for her swift end with British Cycling the claims would have never seen the light of day. It wasn’t long, however, before further claims were made from others within BC including para-cyclist Darren Kenny who said that Sutton had called British para-cyclists “wobblies” and “gimps.”

To add more fuel to the fire Victoria Pendleton and Nicole Cooke, both Olympic Champions, agreed with Varnish that within British Cycling there was very much a culture of bullying and intimidation. Pendleton claiming she was left feeling “miserable” by Sutton and Cooke claiming she was unable to speak out against the organisation explaining she was unable to “Speak out” and “your dreams will be destroyed and years of hard work wasted… Put up with it and hope.” To finally nail the message home BMX world champion Kelvin Batey said that he was driven to consider suicide after the intimidation he suffered withing BC at the hands of Sutton “I have never been that low and will never get get that low again… That man has got a lot to answer for because I am sure I am not the only person he has affected at such an extreme level.”

When it seemed that everyone who ever threw a leg over a bike under Sutton’s eye was about to jump on the critical bandwagon, many of his athletes were quick to jump to his defense. Olympic gold medalist Dani King said she had “never suffered any sexism” by Sutton and track cyclist Joanna Rowsell Shand said she felt that “all track riders were treated equally”. Likewise Laura Trott was quick to point out she had only ever had a “wholly positive and healthy working relationship” with Sutton while two time Olympic champion Geraint Thomas said “He has always wanted the best for British riders and gone the extra mile for us. He’s done more than most for British Cycling.”

With increasing pressure and a suspension imposed by BC, Sutton had little choice but to resign and now with less than a hundred days until the Rio Olympics the British Cycling squad are without a leader and tangled up in accusations being thrown around from all sides. At the very least it’s a sizable mess and at the worst it is a genuine and game changing crisis which looks to have a detrimental impact on British Cycling’s short term successes, particularly in Rio. It seems almost inevitable that further allegations are going to be made and undoubtedly there will be further reaction and toing and froing between those who want to defend and criticise Sutton and BC. In the meantime, the current crop of allegations have prompted a number of investigations, including –

– An investigation into the specific discrimination claims against Sutton.
– An investigation into claims of kit and equipment being sold for personal profit online.
– A review of British Cycling’s performance programme.

The timing of race kit and bikes turning up for sale online couldn’t have been worse. Unquestionably when it rains it really does pour. In isolation that revelation would probably have done little than to raise a smirk from cycling fans and the media at large, but amongst the lengthening list of allegations it only cements the notion that all is not well within British Cycling and sizable changes are ahead.

Once the investigations are complete and the inevitable top-down management changes are made the British Cycling Team can hopefully revert back to type and continue their winning ways but as Olympic Champion Geraint Thomas pointed out “The inequality issues won’t finish with Shane’s resignation/investigation, there is a problem with inequality in cycling as a whole that needs to be addressed.”

Sooner rather than later we hope.