Liz Nicholl: All sports must heed warnings from fall-out over British Cycling bullying allegations

Liz Nicholl says all sports must heed the warnings of the fall-out from the bullying allegations at British Cycling.

An independent review into claims of a culture of bullying has yet to be made public and Nicholl admitted there were regrets over the handling of the affair.

“I think that every leader in every sport will be thinking I wonder if it could happen on my watch in my sport,” said UK Sport’s chief executive. “So it’s a real possibility unless there is good leadership, management and communication.

“Unless all are strongly aligned and there’s appropriate oversight at every level then anything like this could happen in any organisation. But we’ve got to talk more — sports have got to talk more about their values and culture than ever.”

The independent review, headed by GB Rowing chair Annamarie Phelps, has already been leaked but is expected to be made public next month. In it, British Cycling are accused of sanitising their own report into claims by Jess Varnish of bullying and sexism, and even reversing their own findings.

British Cycling have reacted with a 39-point action plan, and will soon have a new hierarchy in place — Julie Harrington coming in as chief executive with Stephen Park as performance director.

“Every great athlete and great coach will say that the biggest lessons are learned from things that go wrong,” said Nicholl. “I hope that the lessons that have been learned from cycling will enable them to be better and stronger.

“Other sports will be looking at cycling. They’ve published an action plan and, if I was still a CEO in a sport, I’d be looking at that action plan and saying have we got that, do I need that? It’s a great check list for what any good organisation should be doing.”

UK Sport has been warned the report makes for “uncomfortable reading”, and Nicholl said a “culture health check” was being implemented across all sports to avoid a repeat of the British Cycling affair.

And she backed British Cycling’s new hierarchy with Jonathan Browing taking over as chairman — describing his appointment as “a good thing” despite Varnish suggesting Browning and the rest of the board should step down.