British cycling world champ Lizzie Armitstead cleared for Rio after winning appeal
British cycling world champ Lizzie Armitstead cleared for Rio after winning appeal
British cycling world champion Lizzie Armitstead will compete in the Rio Games after winning an appeal against an anti-doping rule violation. The 27-year-old from Otley, Yorkshire, faced a suspension for three failures relating to her whereabouts, which led to her missing drugs tests. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) had not followed the correct procedure and the first of the missed tests was declared void. She has two other missed tests on her record and a further absence could have resulted in a two-year ban.Armitstead was charged by UKAD with three whereabouts failures on 11 July.
CAS ruled that the UKAD doping control officer had not followed required procedures nor made reasonable attempts to locate Armitstead. CAS also ruled that there was no negligence on Armitstead's part and that she had followed procedures according to the guidelines.
Statement on Armitstead's behalf
The first came at a World Cup event in Sweden in August 2015 and the second in October 2015. She missed a third test in June 2016 following "an emergency change of plans due to a serious illness within her family". Armitstead did not dispute the second and third misdemeanours, but successfully appealed to CAS over the first. Armitstead was Britain's first medallist of London 2012 four years ago with silver in the road race on The Mall. She won the Road World Championships in the United States last September and is hotly fancied for Sunday's road race on the second day of the Rio Games. She revealed the whereabouts failures in a statement on Monday, before she flew to Brazil on Wednesday.
I have always been and will always be a clean athlete and have been vocal in my anti-doping stance throughout my career. I am pleased that CAS has accepted my position, having provided detailed information demonstrating the situation around my strikes.
