Cycling’s culture under attack
Secrecy, drinking, and bullying, says former squad member
A former New Zealand sprint cyclist says the team-mate involved in a relationship with their former coach, Anthony Peden, warned others not to talk about it.
Stephanie McKenzie says the athlete in question (who has decided not to name) demanded younger cyclists keep the relationship under wraps.
Athletes in the Cycling NZ High Performance programme knew of the relationship between Peden and a female team member, McKenzie said. Among those was the woman’s younger roommate who the woman warned to keep quiet, according to McKenzie.
The roommate raised her concerns with a CNZ staff member, but subsequent investigations have found that Peden shut down any further discussion on the relationship.
‘‘It’s all ‘he said, she said’ sort of stuff, but she [the cyclist in the relationship with Peden] would be the one who told the younger cyclists to be quiet ... it takes two to tango,’’ McKenzie said.
An independent review commissioned by High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) this week confirmed the ‘‘inappropriate’’ relationship between Peden and the cyclist during Peden’s time as CNZ’s head sprint coach. He resigned in May.
CNZ’s code of ethics, signed by Peden in February 2014, says coaches ‘‘should not only refrain from initiating a sexual relationship with riders, but should also discourage any attempt by a rider to initiate a sexual relationship with you’’.
HPSNZ has not named the female cyclist, saying it would be a breach of privacy because she is still on the NZ Cycling programme. has tried to contact her, but she is yet to respond.
McKenzie, 25, says she never personally witnessed anything to suggest a relationship between Peden and the athlete, but is ‘‘good friends’’ with the roommate who initially came forward with concerns about the relationship.
‘‘She was the one who was in the room and was concerned for her team-mate, which you would be. One particular staff member already knew. The staff member got told to keep it quiet.’’
While neither Peden nor the female athlete were interviewed in the review, Peden submitted that the evidence was ‘‘unreliable and inaccurate’’.
The review found Peden was involved in numerous instances of bullying and part of a small group of individuals at CNZ who had a drinking culture. Peden has disputed those findings.
McKenzie said her coach’s behaviour was at times ‘‘embarrassing’’. She says Peden drank freely in front of the team and often encouraged others to join in. This made her and many of the other cyclists uncomfortable.
She recalled one instance in which Peden took the team out for drinks after the 2014 national championships in Cambridge and passed his boot filled with alcohol around the team to drink out of.
While McKenzie did not agree with Peden’s tactics or drinking culture, she said she did not hold anything personal against him.
‘‘There should be positive role models around them . . . having a senior person around them acting like that in that environment is very unprofessional.
‘‘It’s just embarrassing to have it out in the open, it’s embarrassing to know that it has happened in such a successful programme. I am glad I am out of the programme, but I am glad there could be some changes as well.
‘‘I don’t want youth to be going through that environment.’’
Peden, coach of the year at the 2014 Halberg Awards, is now working as a coach with the Chinese national team.
Cycling NZ is given more than $4 million of taxpayer money a year to support the best athletes as they work towards the Olympics.
Weight on her shoulders
During her time with CNZ, McKenzie was put on antidepressants, struggled with her weight and was more stressed than any other point of her life.
A bullying boys’ club is how she describes the programme, which at one point, she was the only female on. She quit cycling after becoming stressed and sad about her weight, blaming the culture Peden oversaw.
‘‘Yeah, I don’t do cycling anymore. I stopped enjoying it I guess. It was so political.’’
McKenzie, who has type 1 diabetes, says her male counterparts were also told by Peden to keep a close eye on her eating habits.
‘‘So you’ve got the head guy telling these boys that they need to be watching [my] eating. It ended up that I was just being singled out.’’
McKenzie said she became so stressed she began to gain weight, despite over-exercising and under-fuelling.
When she confronted her coach and nutritionist about her anxiety, she was told stress would help with weight loss.
After months of communication over her weight struggles, CNZ wrote to McKenzie saying she was dropped from the team because of her weight, she said.
At her heaviest she was 80 kilograms. Now, McKenzie says she is a happier 76kg.
She is now based in Feilding as a personal trainer and is speaking out because she wants other younger athletes to join a nurturing environment and not the ‘‘toxic’’ one she was introduced to as an 18-year-old.