You know the most remarkable thing about Nicole Cooke’s eviscerating evidence to parliament last week, which detailed staggering cases of institutional sexism by British Cycling, lax responses by the authorities when she reported doping violations and poor governance by some of the most august UK sporting bodies? Nobody denied it. Not one person. Not one authority. No one.
I saw MPs shake their heads several times while they heard Cooke, an Olympic, world and Commonwealth road race champion, tell her story. Some of them looked incredulous when Cooke explained that, as a 19-year-old, she had gone to the UK anti-doping authorities after her Italian team manager asked her to take performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), only to be told “they would not do anything with my evidence”. Only the actions of the Italian police, who had the powers to record conversations, conduct video surveillance and raid houses, led to the arrest of her directeur sportif William Dazzani.
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