Former Great Britain sprinter is gearing up for tribunal challenge

Jess Varnish’s bitter dispute with British Cycling and UK Sport will go before a Manchester employment tribunal today, with far more than a potential compensation payment riding on the verdict.

The 28-year-old sprinter was dropped from the Great Britain cycling team in April 2016, less than a month after she publicly criticised her coaches for mistakes made in qualifying for the Rio Olympics.

She says she was cut from the programme because she was a whistleblower and has claimed that British Cycling’s then-technical director Shane Sutton bullied riders and told her to “go and have a baby”.

British Cycling maintains Varnish was dropped for performance reasons but an internal investigation later found that Sutton had used sexist language, before an independent inquiry accused him of presiding over a “culture of fear”.

Now, more than two-and-a-half years later, Varnish is starting a two-step process to win damages from British Cycling for wrongful dismissal and sex discrimination.

To do that she must first convince the tribunal she was an employee of British Cycling and UK Sport, the elite funding agency that provides Olympic and Paralympic athletes with grants.

Varnish, who is now pregnant, is scheduled to give evidence tomorrow