At quieter times, British Cycling’s appointment of Julie Harrington as its chief executive might have been seen as a landmark appointment: she will be the first woman to hold a position this senior in the governing body and after recent accusations of sexism, that sends an obvious message.
As it stands, however, British Cycling is embroiled in the worst crisis in its recent history, and who would dare predict what may have happened by the time Harrington takes up her post in May?
Harrington is currently running both Wembley Stadium and the FA’s elite training centre at St George’s Park, near Burton, which she has overseen since it neared completion in 2011. She also spent nine years as the operations director with the Northern Racing Group, which ran racecourses including Hereford, Fontwell Park and Uttoxeter.
Her CV includes stints at Whitbread and British Airways, as well as, more amusingly, the soft play area chain Wacky Warehouse, which some may feel has an apposite ring given recent developments in the Manchester velodrome. More tellingly, perhaps, for those with an interest in cycling’s grassroots, Harrington built strong links with the lower reaches of football in her time at St George’s Park, and her experience in sporting infrastructure could come in handy as British Cycling looks to develop off-road venues in the run up to the 2019 world road championships in Yorkshire.
Harrington joins two other relative newcomers to cycling at the top of the governing body: the chair, Jonathan Browning, and the performance director, Stephen Park.
They face unprecedented challenges, with action needed on the Phelps report into allegations of sexism and bullying and on the culture surrounding the Olympic cycling team.
That is a known quantity – the report has been received but is yet to be published while lawyers have their say – and an action plan has been established. Merely putting into effect its 39 points could prove a challenge as the governing body makes the transition into what will in effect be a corporate entity run by executives from outside cycling. Browning is well known for his work in the car industry while Harrington’s background is largely on the commercial side of sport.
It is harder to predict what will happen when UK Anti-Doping completes its inquiry into allegations of possible wrongdoing at both British Cycling and Team Sky. It is not clear what will be the fallout from last week’s revelations of purchases of the controversial corticosteroid triamcinolone, which far outstripped clinical need according to the Ukad head Nicole Sapstead, or of a delivery of testosterone patches which turned up apparently due to a mistake at the suppliers and had to be returned to sender, or of dissent among Team Sky’s medics over Sir Bradley Wiggins’s Therapeutic Use Exemptions. Both the governing body and Team Sky have made clear throughout the inquiry that they have given the process their full cooperation and that they are confident there has been no wrongdoing.
There remain questions over precisely what happened to the triamcinolone and what was in the Jiffy bag delivered to Wiggins, and whether the General Medical Council will take action against the current British Cycling and former Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman over his record-keeping, plus what the chain of command was within the two organisations. It is unclear as well what the fallout of all this will be on the Olympic “medal factory”, which could well end up being destabilised at the start of the next Olympic cycle.
“This is the right time to be joining one of this country’s leading governing bodies,” Harrington said in a statement – but that remains to be seen.
