British cyclist under fire for skipping drug tests
The Team Great Britain cycling team arrives in Rio with one of the most formidable assemblages of talent of any team in any sport competing in these Games.
However, amid that star-studded lineup of riders, which includes the likes of back-to-back Tour de France champion Chris Froome, two-time Olympic gold medalist Laura Trott and Bradley Wiggins, the first Englishman ever to win the Tour, there is a simmering patch of controversy.
Lizzie Armitstead, the 27-year-old reigning female world road race champion who is set to compete in Sunday’s women’s road race, arrived in Rio Wednesday under the cloud of a doping scandal, amid accusations that she had deliberately missed three drugs tests in the past 12 months.
Having missed three doping tests, it looked as if Armitstead would be banned from the Rio Olympics under a stipulation dictating that athletes who receive “three strikes” receive an automatic 12-month ban from the sport.
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However, on Monday Armitstead was granted an 11th-hour appeal against the ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, permitting her to take part in the Games.
The court ruled that one of the missed tests in question was not the fault of Armitstead, but of the testing authorities. According to Armitstead’s story, Simon Thornton, a British Cycling employee who was tasked with ensuring she didn’t receive a third strike, left the organization in May without informing her.
Armitstead, who won a silver medal at the London Games four years ago, maintains that had Thornton still been on the job, the “oversight” that resulted in her missing the June 9 test would never have occurred.
In a personal statement, the Team GB rider maintained that her “personal family circumstances at the time of the test were incredibly difficult,” another reason she missed it.
Armitstead succeeded in having the first of the three infractions struck from the record following her hearing with CAS, which accepted her appeal that UKAD, the UK Anti-Doping committee, had failed to make a sufficient effort to contact her on the day of the test in question.
“Calling an athlete’s mobile phone is not a method approved by UKAD to try and locate an athlete,” argued Armitstead in her statement. “As such it is not an argument against me that I slept with my phone on silent in order to not disturb a roommate. Put simply, I was available and willing to provide a sample for UKAD.”
“We respect the outcome of the CAS hearing against Elizabeth Armitstead,” read a statement from UKAD Chief Executive Nicole Sapstead.
“When UKAD asserts a Whereabouts Failure against an athlete, the athlete has the opportunity to challenge the apparent Whereabouts Failure through an external Administrative Review, before it is confirmed.
“At the CAS hearing, Ms. Armitstead raised a defense in relation to the first Whereabouts Failure, which was accepted by the Panel.”
Armitstead has also cited her clean blood profile and the fact that she has been tested 16 times in 2016 and passed each time as further proof of her innocence.
[Related: Petition asks for Russian whistleblower’s ban to be lifted]
“I hope I have made it clear that family comes before cycling, I am not obsessively driven to success in cycling, I love my sport, but I would never cheat for it.”
However, despite the court’s ruling and Armitstead’s personal assurances, not everyone is buying it.
Armitstead has been criticized by fans and fellow cyclists for missing the tests amid widespread allegations of doping by Russian athletes. And at a time when cycling is still struggling to rehabilitate its reputation and move beyond high profile doping scandals that have seen some of the sport’s top athletes stripped of their honors.
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, the 2014 female world champion, called the CAS decision “shameful.” Armitstead’s fiance Phil Deignan lashed back at Ferrand-Prevot on Twitter about an alleged affair she’d had with a married man. The tweet was later deleted.
While Armitstead is set to be allowed to compete in Sunday’s road race, she will do so under a cloud of uncertainty, as doubts remain about her explanations as to why she missed the tests.
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