Our Olympic golden hope Lizzie, THREE missed drugs tests and the doubts that won’t go away
Tomorrow morning at the grey-stone Unitarian Bridge Church in the west Yorkshire market town of otley, some of the parishioners have asked for prayers to be said for a local heroine. Not for her soul, but for her success. Because just a few hours later in rio — at 4.15pm our time — Lizzie Armitstead pushes off in the gruelling 85.5-mile women’s cycle road race. She is the favourite to win.
Four years ago during the London Games, when Lizzie was beaten by a bike’s length into second place, the priest at the Bridge Church, the nowdeceased reverend Tony Gardener, led the congregation in a rousing chorus of three cheers, from his pulpit.
How sweet it would be for the churchgoers — and, of course, for 27-yearold Lizzie — to go one better and take the gold this time. But let us be frank. Should Lizzie win, it would be a bittersweet victory.
Barely a moment ago, it was russia’s athletes, with their state-sponsored drugs cheating, who were the talk of the Games.
How regrettable then, that the spotlight has swung over to the Yorkshire lass who, in the space of a year, has missed three drugs tests and yet is competing in rio, having avoided a ban for the mandatory period of two years.
Understandably, perhaps, in otley on the edge of Leeds, where grammar school-educated Lizzie grew up the athletic daughter of an accountant and a teacher, they won’t hear a word of doubt about her.
‘we would all trust Lizzie not to do anything untoward,’ declares church secretary Susan richardson. In otley, it is hard to find anyone prepared to say anything else.
And on September 17, most of the town’s 13,000 souls will be out, clapping and cheering, when Lizzie gets married in this pretty little church to handsome fellow cyclist Philip Deignan, who is in rio with the Irish team.
By then, they all hope she will have a gold medal to show off, as well as a wedding ring. However, she can never escape the instincts of fellow sportsmen and women who feel she should not be allowed to race at the olympics. They believe she has escaped a ban on a technicality — a ‘loophole’.
The man who got her off, Londonbased lawyer mike morgan, whose firm, morgan Sports Law, specialises in ‘protecting the interests of elite athletes, sports executives and managers’, insists it wasn’t a loophole.
So is all the talk of intentional skulduggery on Lizzie’s part fair to a girl of considerable charm who worked tirelessly to turn herself into Britain’s queen of cycle road racing and who has brought home a world championship and many other honours?
She has dined with the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and met Prince william and the Duchess of Cambridge.
BUT surely Lizzie has only herself to blame. The rules state that all athletes must keep the authorities informed at all times as to their whereabouts so random testing can take place.
The first of Lizzie’s three missed banned substance tests was on August 20, 2015, with the second on october 5 and the third on June 9 this year.
Last August, Lizzie was staying at the First Hotel Grand in Alingsås, Sweden, where she was competing. At 6am, an officer from UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) arrived, unannounced, as is their practice, and asked for Lizzie’s room number.
Surprisingly, he didn’t already have it — athletes are strongly advised to declare it to the testing authorities when they are staying in a hotel.
Not surprisingly, hotel staff wouldn’t give it to a man who refused to say precisely who he was. He called Lizzie’s mobile, but got no reply. She says she had put it on silent while she slept for the sake of her room-mate.
The incident was logged as a missed test. Strike one.
Lizzie duly protested and was invited to appeal but didn’t do so because, she told the mail this week: ‘I was travelling to America for the world championship and didn’t want the distraction.’
The second missed test, in october, occurred when the UKAD had no idea where she was — an oversight on her behalf which was in contravention of the rules.
She said it was an administrative error in failing to update her whereabouts, explaining that she was in holiday mode, celebrating winning the world championship, and it had slipped her mind. Strike two. The third miss was June 9 when she had logged that she would be at the monaco apartment she and her fiancé share. when the inspector arrived, she wasn’t there.
He rang her mobile to discover she was elsewhere, out of reach.
Lizzie claimed she’d had to leave suddenly because of a ‘family emergency’. Indeed, we understand a close relative had been diagnosed with a serious illness.
But, surely, as fellow sportsmen and women have been caustically arguing, she could have taken a few seconds to email her change of location to UKAD, especially with her career at stake after two missed tests.
As the Beijing olympics gold medal rower mark Hunter declares: ‘If I’d missed a test and had a strike against me and was only two strikes from losing my whole career, I’d be so paranoid about missing another that I’d sleep by the door to make sure the inspector knew where to find me.’
Undoubtedly, Lizzie has a great deal to lose. Just a few years ago, when she was a relative newcomer to cycling and relying on a modest sporting stipend from the National Lottery, she was, as one close figure recalls, ‘sleeping on friends’ sofas and floors much of the time, struggling to make ends meet’.
How different things are now, with a troop of lucrative sponsors including Kellogg’s, BP, Adidas, Amira bikes and insurer Cycleplan.
Adidas supports her, saying she has ‘provided a clear explanation of what happened’ and describing her as a ‘valued Adidas ambassador’.
But how clear was her explanation? It applies only to what happened at the Swedish hotel, for this is the only ‘strike’ against which she, ultimately, appealed.
Having got a third strike, she had to extricate herself from at least one or be banned for two years, just before rio.
Enter lawyer mike morgan, 38, encountering what some might view as a tricky situation when he and Armitstead faced the Court of Arbitration for Sport — sport’s ‘supreme court’ — in Lausanne. After all, the sticking point about the examiner’s 6am hotel call was that he didn’t have Lizzie’s room number.
Significantly, British Cycling compliance manager Simon Thornton had advised all riders in an email to ‘make sure your ADAmS (Anti-Doping Administration and management Systems) whereabouts information is as accurate as possible’, including ‘detailing your room number if you are staying in a hotel’.
Thornton, who left his job in may and is now with Liverpool FC, added: ‘You need to make it as easy for them (the testers) as possible.’
The UK Anti-Doping Agency gives similar advice to athletes. ‘If you are staying in a hotel, then you need to add your room number to your whereabouts or ensure that the room is booked in your name so any Doping Control officer can locate you easily,’ it states.
Good advice, surely, and so simple one is entitled to wonder why Lizzie Armitstead didn’t take it. But her
lawyer Mike Morgan doesn’t agree. he accepts the existence of this advice to athletes, but he argues this is all it is — advice.
‘It is not in the rules,’ he says. ‘The athletes are required to abide by something called the International standards for Testing and Investigation. That does not say you have to specify the room number.’
The Court agreed, and, Lizzie won her appeal. Extraordinarily, you may think, it is the doping Control Officer who has been criticised for not going about his job correctly.
NO WOndER sporting folk have referred to her lawyer as ‘Mr Loophole Mk II’ — a reference to Manchester-based solicitor nick Freeman who is known as ‘Mr Loophole’ for his ability to locate legal ways of extricating celebrities such as former soccer manager sir alex Ferguson and david beckham from alleged motoring offences.
‘but this wasn’t a loophole,’ says Mr Morgan. ‘Everyone has to abide by the rules — athletes and officials.’
he has also acted for some Russian athletes but says he ‘prefers not to talk about anything current’. he represented the Russian track and field athletes in their unsuccessful appeal to the Court of arbitration for sport to compete in Rio, and also, it should be recognised, was a central figure in helping Russian whistleblowers expose corruption at the International association of athletics Federations.
Ominously, he points out that ‘if you are removed from the Olympic Games based on a report when you haven’t had the opportunity of seeing the evidence against you, or to respond to it, these are very serious issues and could mean you have a claim against the body that made the decision against you’.
What matters to Lizzie armitstead is that her career was saved. she can continue to live in Monaco, where she says she moved for the year-round training weather and challenging climbs — not for the tax benefits enjoyed by sports stars such as Lewis hamilton and fellow cyclist Chris Froome — while her heart, and home, remain in Otley.
by early evening tomorrow, she could be the winner of a gold medal. For many, however, to miss three dope tests and still be allowed to compete in the Olym- pic Games, leaves a bad taste in the mouth, whichever country the athlete comes from.
It’s worth remembering that the Christine Ohuruogu, britain’s 400m Olympic champion in beijing, was banned for a year in 2006 after missing three drug tests, even though an independent committee found she had been guilty only of ‘forgetfulness’. significantly, respected former athletes we contacted this week declined to comment on the controversy surrounding Lizzie. ‘don’t involve me in that,’ pleaded one of the greatest names in british sport, in a typical response. ‘I’m not getting into those murky waters.’ For her part, Lizzie, continues to insist she has never, would never, be anything but ‘clean’. ‘The hardest thing about this,’ she says, ‘is that there will be people who will always have doubts about my performance.’ Whether she wins a gold medal tomorrow or not, that much, regrettably, has to be the truth. as for the idea of a prayer for Lizzie armitstead a few hours before she competes tomorrow, the church’s temporary priest, the Rev alan Griffith, has decided against it. ‘I wouldn’t deem it appropriate to pray for the success of one competitor over another,’ he explains. ‘My prayer will be that the Olympics will foster friendship between countries and bring pleasure and inspiration to spectators and competitors alike.’ Isn’t that the Olympic spirit we are all looking for?