Varnish demands texts as she steps up Sutton fight

LAWYERS for Jess Varnish have written to British Cycling demanding the release of all emails and text messages which refer to her during the 13 years she spent on their programmes. It represents an escalation of the dispute between Varnish and the governing body over former technical director Shane Sutton, who resigned in April amid a bullying and discrimination storm. Last week it was revealed that an internal British Cycling investigation cleared Sutton of eight of nine charges levelled against him, though it did find him guilty of using the term ‘bitches’ to Varnish. Sprint cyclist Varnish, a former world record holder and multiple World Championships medallist, alleged in this newspaper that Sutton had told her to ‘go and have a baby’ after dumping her from the team. This complaint was not upheld and neither was the claim that he had told her that her bum was ‘too big’ to ride certain roles on the team. But a furious Varnish wants to see the entire report and her representatives believe emails referring to her could undermine its findings. They have also demanded to see text messages to and from Varnish, Sutton, British Cycling head coach Iain Dyer and sprint coaches Justin Grace and Jan van Eijden. The Varnish camp are particularly confused about how a complaint that Australian Sutton used the word ‘Sheilas’ to refer to female riders was not upheld. An independent investigation into claims of a bullying culture at British Cycling, including allegations made to Sportsmail that disabled riders were referred to as ‘gimps’ and ‘wobblies’, is expected to publish its findings in early January.