‘I never had a problem with the culture’

Katy Marchant sparked GB’s cycling row but tells in Hong Kong she is happy in the set-up

It was the interview that launched a thousand inquiries, cost her then team-mate Jess Varnish her place in the Great Britain squad, and ultimately led to the departure of British Cycling technical director Shane Sutton, amid explosive allegations of bullying and sexism.

Twelve months on, however, Katy Marchant – who was as scathing as Varnish about British Cycling coaches in the aftermath of the duo’s failure to qualify for a team sprint place for Rio 2016 – insists that she has “experienced nothing but happy things really” within the world-class performance programme, and has “never had a problem” with the culture in Manchester.

Marchant’s comments may come as a surprise to those who remember her incendiary remarks after she and Varnish finished fifth at the Track World Championships in London last year, narrowly losing out to France in the battle to secure Olympic qualification.

Varnish and Marchant blamed their failure on British Cycling coaches experimenting with less proven riders earlier in the qualification process.

“A lot of frustration, disappointment, disappointed in the organisation,” Marchant said at the time, fighting back tears. “We’re in this position through decisions of other people, not through any fault of our own.”

Speaking ahead of this week’s world championships in Hong Kong, where she will compete in the sprint, the 500metres time trial and the keirin, Marchant insisted that those remarks were limited to the Olympic qualifying process itself, saying she did not recognise any of the issues subsequently flagged up by Varnish.

“One hundred per cent,” she said. “I had never had a problem with the culture. Obviously at the world champs last year there was a lot of disappointment, and there were some heated moments. Things got expressed maybe not the way that they should.

“But as soon as I got back to training after the world championships, I changed my focus from the team sprint and took it on to the individual events. And I tend to be a very focused person, so I don’t find it difficult to block things out and move on.”

According to a leaked draft of the controversial independent inquiry into the culture within British Cycling, Varnish’s subsequent removal from the