Shane Sutton says he made case for Varnish to retain contract

British Cycling’s former technical director Shane Sutton says that he made the case for Jess Varnish to remain on the British Cycling team. When the track sprinter was dropped from the Olympic programme last April, she alleged that Sutton had told her to ‘go and have a baby’ when informing her of this.

Sutton resigned from his position as British Cycling’s technical director later that same month having been suspended following further accusations of bullying and discrimination.

A British Cycling investigation cleared him on eight out of nine charges, although the conclusions of the grievance officer who investigated the case were that considerably more allegations be found proven.

The draft version of the recently released independent review into the culture of British Cycling suggested that the board “sanitised” the subsequent report, but that particular word was subsequently removed.

The change in wording is thought to have been as a result of the process of Maxwellisation where those criticised in reports are given the right to reply.

The Daily Mail says it has seen has seen extracts of Sutton's 4,000 word response to the report.

Regarding Varnish, he said: “It has in fact been minuted at (British Cycling) that (I) was the only person from a four-person panel that had reservations about the departure of (Varnish) until the coaching team produced the relevant and overwhelming performance-based evidence. A decision that has retrospectively been justified given the performances of Olympic medallists Becky James and Katie Marchant. (Varnish) could only qualify 17th at the world championships held in London last year.”

Varnish has said she feels ‘insulted’ by some of the findings of the independent review. While the suggestions that the handling of her case by British Cycling’s board had been “inept”, “shocking” and “inexcusable” were removed, some of the testimony that was still included descriptions of her as a “troublemaker” and the “ringleader” for criticism of coaches.