Lizzie Armitstead has avoided a two-year ban for anti-doping violations relating to whereabouts, clearing her to ride in the Rio Olympics this weekend.
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The following year and Armitstead had not only finished first in 10 of her 12 races, but was named UCI World Champion and leader of the UCI’s women’s road World Cup.
UKAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead said: “At the CAS hearing, she raised a defence in relation to the first failure, which was accepted by the panel”.
A British Cycling-funded legal team backed Armitstead in her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), reports Cycling Weekly.
Armitstead’s inspired form has only bettered during 2016, with her having a ideal record in her six races thus far – winning each one, making her a firm favourite amongst bookies’ to take her first gold at an Olympic Games.
Lizzie Armitstead has issued a statement hitting back at comments about missed doping tests.
“I did think about [appealing the first missed test]”.
News broke yesterday that Armitstead’s absence at recent Women’s WorldTour events was due to a provisional suspension after being charged by the UK Anti-Doping agency for three missed anti-doping tests.
– Missed anti-doping tests are not uncommon.
In 14 year of tests I have one recorded missed out of competition test.
“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”.
We can only take her at her word that she has “always been and will always be a clean athlete” but one only needs to ask the 400-metre runner Christine Ohuruogu about how long it took for the public to get her three missed tests out of their minds.
This led to British Cycling official Simon Thornton being assigned to help her, however, “this system fell apart” when Thornton left the organisation three weeks before a third missed test on June 9 without her knowledge. This was not accepted on the eve of me travelling to America for my World Championships. But three missed tests in one year is.
Opinion was divided yesterday on how much responsibility Armitstead bore for her Olympic dream nearly being destroyed, with UKAD criticised after being judged by CAS not to have followed the correct process during the first missed test and the cyclist herself coming under fire for recording two subsequent whereabouts failures.
But didn’t Armitstead commit an anti-doping rule violation, irregardless of a potential CAS appeal?
She added: “I was advised regular late changes to availability would be noted and would then draw more targeted testing”.
Armitstead missed the third test, on June 9 this year, due to a serious family illness and said in a statement posted on Twitter: “My personal family circumstances at the time of the test were incredibly hard”.
Armitstead has been criticized by fans and fellow cyclists for missing the tests amid widespread allegations of doping by Russian athletes.
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Unfortunately for the 27 year-old, she will only have two English compatriots supporting her bid for gold, with veteran Emma Pooley and Boels-Dolmans teammate Nikki Harris being the only two excluding Armitstead to qualify.
