Jess Varnish has spoken out against British Cycling after being dropped from the Olympic programme, claiming she was told by technical director Shane Sutton that she was too old and that she should “move on and go and have a baby”.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the 25-year-old sprinter described the fall-out surrounding her contract not being renewed, and also criticised the culture at British Cycling, saying she has “a list as long as my arm about comments I’ve had about my figure”.
British Cycling issued a statement in response in which they insisted that Varnish’s exclusion from the programme was solely performance related, while Sutton denied acting with anything other than “complete professionalism”.
ADVERTISEMENT
Varnish ruffled feathers in the British camp when she publicly criticised the coaching set-up at the Track World Championships in London last month. She and Katy Marchant could only mange fifth in the team sprint, meaning they didn’t qualify for the Olympic Games, and Varnish attributed a portion of the blame to some of the past selection decisions.
“[Head coach] Iain Dyer heard my interview and he shouted, ‘This is bullshit, Jess’,” Varnish told the Daily Mail, revealing that she was dropped from an upcoming training camp at late notice and then summoned for a meeting. “I asked what the meeting was about and within two minutes over the phone he [Dyer] told me I was no longer part of the programme because my performance wasn’t good enough.”
Varnish, who claims she was never made aware she wasn’t hitting her targets, says she asked to see her performance data, only for her relationship with the coaching staff to deteriorate.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1rrfGyz
No comments:
Post a Comment