Doping

That's why she missed the London Classic then.

You can look at this two ways - she's a lone wolf in her training, isn't in the GB cycling setup, doesn't train with her team mates - and the reason for that is so she can dope freely without anyone seeing.
Or, she's a lone wolf in her training and this means she also has to manage all the whereabouts herself, without the support of her team to make sure she doesn't miss tests.

Got to admit, it doesn't sound quite right to me though.

On the lone wolf thing, Lizzie apparently coaches herself.

Yep, that's sort of my point - so it's either that she doesn't play well with others, which is probably the most likely, or for the people who like to point fingers - that means she's got fewer eyes on her habits so it's easier to dope.

I'd have still been pretty pissed off if I hadn't even had a knock at the door.

If I so much as get a missed parcel card through the door without hearing a knock you'll find me ready to strangle any passing Royal Mail employee. A legit world champion being blasé about a missed test that (along with others) could end a career?

If I so much as get a missed parcel card through the door without hearing a knock you'll find me ready to strangle any passing Royal Mail employee. A legit world champion being blasé about a missed test that (along with others) could end a career?

Yeah, but that's you. who knows how she would react. She maybe a cheat, she may be lazy, she may be so single minded that things like this don't even register.

The piece in the Daily Mail was wrong on this, BC took advice on what any ban would mean for the selection for Rio and shared this information with Armitstead. Her legal costs were borne by her and/or her team.

Very disappointing news, huge fan of Lizzie's and like it all not this leaves a cloud of suspicion hanging over her. Whether its founded or not is another matter, but very sloppy from her and all concerned.

I understand that.

“We paid for legal advice on our own position because there were a number of considerations as she was going through the Olympic selection process and was a podium athlete,” said a British Cycling spokesman. “That legal advice was shared with Lizzie and her team. Lizzie herself funded the actual appeal to Cas”

It cost's about £800 to register an appeal to CAS. I wonder how much the legal advice was worth?

Do they do the same for everyone?

It makes sense for BC to fund an appeal to CAS for a high profile athlete if there's a chance of clearing his or her name, especially right before a major sporting event that they're a medal hopeful for.
It's not a great situation they have right now, with a cloud of suspicion hanging over her head in Rio, but worse might be losing a gold medal contender to a doping scandal, because then that suspicion could spread to other athletes.

Whatever the fine details on the surface it looks like a privileged athlete being well, privileged, while whistleblowers like Stepanova (sp?) get shat upon.

I'm a massive fan of Armistead. Didn't really understand what 2 confirmed UKAD whereabouts failures meant, so did some research..

After looking at UKADs reports from April 2015 to April 2016, any athlete having 2 whereabouts failures is pretty unusual. In this period UKAD did 7771 tests (all sports) over 12 months and only had 27 confirmed whereabouts failures. If you look at how many were cycling specific, BCF and UCI out of competition tests, then the odds look even worse for Armitstead getting 2 confirmed whereabouts failures, BCF only did 331 out of competition tests and UCI only 4.

I love watching Armitstead race and have followed her career closely. It's brilliant how candidly she talks about her solo training and finding her self belief. Watching Armitstead win the World Champs was one of the best moments ever. I don't think she's ever doped and I don't think she ever would. I'd love her to win a gold at Rio, I really hope I'm not being naive.

Anyone whose interested all.UKAD reports can be downloaded here:
http://www.ukad.org.uk/anti-doping-rule-violations/quarterly-reports-on-rule-violations

“People make mistakes, yeah, but they’re idiots”

Armistead on people who claim to have mistakenly taken banned substances.

Thing is I've been hugely critical of athletes that have missed tests in the past, like Bauge (and Rio) so it's very difficult to give Lizzie the benefit of the doubt. I realise making sure you are available for an hour a day for the entire fucking year isn't easy but at the same time it's fucking an essential part of your professional career. I haven't looked at Twitter but I can almost imagine the rejoicing in the street that the poster girl for British cycling and current World Champ has been exposed so badly in this way. It's now a taint on her, going to be difficult to watch the race and cheer her on.

Mind you it's going to be difficult to watch any of the Olympics quite frankly, what a mess.

Missing calls/tests can happen, but the thing I don't understand is why wait to contest the first 'offence' until after the third.

I know, it's especially difficult as its coincided with increased performance too. I'm still giving Armitstead the benefit of the doubt. If I didn't then I'd lose a hero, realise bc were covering up institutional doping and CAS were corrupt...just too much. Yeah Olympics, sad times.

After looking at UKADs reports from April 2015 to April 2016, any athlete having 2 whereabouts failures is pretty unusual. In this period UKAD did 7771 tests (all sports) over 12 months and only had 27 confirmed whereabouts failures. If you look at how many were cycling specific, BCF and UCI out of competition tests, then the odds look even worse for Armitstead getting 2 confirmed whereabouts failures, BCF only did 331 out of competition tests and UCI only 4.

This is really interesting, thanks.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, that means over 10% of all Ukad - for all sports - missed tests in that period were her. That's staggering.

Who was that other male UK cyclist who had his own erm, 'independent' training program and found himself in difficulty fairly recently...

British Cycling receiving Lottery funding (which is dependent on Olympic and Worlds results) probably has nothing to do with it.

They'd rather have a tainted medal than none at all.

I'd rather see Dani King being given a chance instead.

Of course, this lack of information hasn't stopped the usual 'experts' from finding her guilty of doping immediately.

Her surname starts with 'Arm', that's all anyone needs to know. :)

Nicole Cooke's thoughts:

http://nicolecooke.com/news/

She's not getting much sympathy from her fellow riders either.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riders-react-to-the-lizzie-armitstead-case/
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Well that's one less person I'm following on Instagram.

The more I read the more I'm convinced this stinks.

You stay classy Phil Deignan

I wish you weren't so habitually cryptic.

So I'm still trying to understand this. My only thought to make this ok is that Armitstead is a 'lone wolf', she doesn't have a full time coach and she doesn't have the full time/any support from British Cycling. If she isolated herself to train for her goals then maybe she didn't have the support network around her to make sure the admin was addressed when she fell short as an individual. It looks like UKAD doesn't disclose whereabouts failures until it's 3 strikes. So there is a possibility Armitstead was single mindedly burrying her head in the sand and as soon as it got to 3 strikes other parties like B.C. and her team Boels heard of this. That's why she then got the support of B.C. and CAS found her first whereabouts failure annulled. I honestly don't think B.C. or CAS would've put their reputations on the line if they didn't believe Armitstead was innocent. If they did then the repercussions will destroy the sport.