Sky Cycling Team

There was an article of Cycling Weekly about how foreign media outlets have barely mentioned the whole Sky story, citing how complicated it is, that it involves a package from six years ago, there are no positives so its a little meh to them generally.

And while its clearly not meh, its not the 'holing below the waterline' Kimmage thinks. I'm not sure about the whole sexism row, however there are women on the team that clearly flourished throughout the period, and while Cooke, Pendleton and Varnish felt hard done by, this is a wolrd class sports team, and part of me feels that to be world class you have to push everyone as hard as a you. And as I said with the Alex Ferguson analogy, you don't make an omelette without breaking dem eggs

From the Guardian article: "the review allegedly finds that the British Cycling board not only “sanitised” the report into Jess Varnish’s allegations of discrimination against Sutton but reversed the findings of its own grievance officer".

If true of course, a board actually overturning its control mechanisms (rather than not having adequate controls, as per the medical records) is going well beyond a performance culture.

That sort of approach may be sustainable in commercial organisations with deep pockets for payouts and legal hushing of ex-employees, or perhaps where there is adequate compartmentalisation (I bet the hairdryer was kept well away from youth team, or salaried office staff). It isn't at a largely publicly funded org, and shows extremely poor governance and attitude to risk.

In short, how can anything that BC says be trusted?

It's worrying for sure, but remember this is a leaked copy of the report, before it's been finalised. It may be completely accurate, but there's a chance it isn't. I think it's reasonable to wait until the report is published before calling in the hounds.

I doubt it will be that exciting in itself, seems a bit toothless. Hoping more people are asked to attend a future Select Committee.