Sutton told bully probe: ‘I stood up for Varnish’

SHANE SUTTON claims he made a case for Jess Varnish to remain a member of the British Cycling team prior to the controversial decision to axe her before last summer’s Olympic Games.

Sportsmail has seen extracts of Sutton’s 4,000-word response to the draft report written by the independent review panel that was appointed after Varnish’s allegations of bullying and discrimination against him.

Sutton resigned as technical director in April 2016 when he was suspended pending an investigation.

But he told the panel he questioned the decision to remove Varnish from the World Class Programme after her poor performances at the world track championships in March last year.

At the same championships, Varnish publicly blamed coaching staff for her performances — although the independent panel concluded it was not an act of retribution to remove her.

In a submission written with the assistance of Sutton’s lawyers to panel chair Annamarie Phelps, Sutton, who refers to himself in the third person for clarity, wrote: ‘In respect of the specific allegation it has been minuted at BC that SS (Sutton) was the only person from a 4-person panel that had reservations about the departure of JV until the coaching team produced the relevant, performancebased evidence.

‘A decision that has retrospectively been justified given the performances of medallists Becky James and Katy Marchant. JV could only qualify 17th at the World Championships.’

Sutton also challenged the accusation that he had favourites, in the context of his alleged treatment of Varnish. He wrote: ‘Equipment was ALWAYS provided on the basis of where a particular athlete and/or squad was in qualification terms for the upcoming Games and had nothing to do with alleged favouritism.

‘In the case of (Varnish), she was provided a full, Olympic-grade skinsuit and helmet at the 2016 Championships, which is a clear demonstration that (Sutton) was committed to her success.’ Sutton challenged the claim in thet draft report that he ‘went fromf being on the verge of being dismissed in late 2008 to being placed into effective day-to-day control less than a year later’.

‘This is simply incorrect,’ he wrote. Sutton explained that after the 2008 Olympics he was asked to ‘step aside’ by Sir DaveD Brailsford, former British Cycling performance director, ‘ to allow other coaches to develop professionally during the preparation for London 2012’. Sutton instead spent much of the next three years focusing on the creation of Team Sky.

But in late 2011, Brailsford put Sutton in charge of the track team just 10 months before the London Games.

‘In late 2011 SS and DB flew from Italy to the European Track Champs,’ Sutton told the panel. ‘SS watched proceedings and on the conclusion of the event DB called a meeting and confronted the below-par performance with staff and riders, informing them in no uncertain terms that SS would be re-assuming Head Coach role.’

Sutton remains out of work, while Varnish will continue to explore her legal options. Yesterday her lawyer, Tom Barnard, told

Sportsmail she was unhappy not to have been given the opportunity to respond to accusations within the report that she was a ‘ring leader and trouble-maker’.