Having encountered British Cycling’s scandal-hit technical director Shane Sutton in the early part of his international career when riding for Team GB, Kelvin Batey has offered the first insights into what he says was a relationship that nearly ruined his life. And he is set to appear on BBC and ITV this evening, Wednesday, to give more detail.
Having ridden for Team GB for most of his career and qualified the nation a place at the Olympics only to be ruled out through injury, BMX rider Kelvin Batey has spoken out about British Cycling’s technical director Shane Sutton.
Batey now rides for Ireland, for whom he has won Masters world titles in recent seasons, and is hopeful of presenting Ireland at the Rio Olympics.
He has spent today, Wednesday, telling British TV crews his side of his relationship with Sutton.
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Those broadcasts are expected to emerge later today and Batey is also later due to speak with stickybottle.
However, he has already taken to social media and left nobody in any doubt about his feelings for Sutton.
“I have experienced Shane Sutton’s bullying tactics first hand, bad representative of British Cycling,” he said.
“What goes around comes around. This man nearly ruined my life in 2008. At least some good came from it.”
The broadcasts are expected to appear on the ITV and BBC news in the UK where Batey lives.
Sutton has been accused of sexism and bullying by star riders like Jess Varnish, Victoria Pendleton and Nicole Cooke. And he has also been accused of referring to paracyclists as “wobblies” and “gimps”.
British Cycling has said an independent review is being carried out. And Sutton was suspended, only to resign this afternoon.
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Batey doing one of his TV interviews in the UK today. Both interviews were expected to be broadcast tonight on ITV and BBC.
Batey said of his decision to speak out now: “Time to share my story about British Cycling from 08 with lots of media being in touch today.
"It's been a monkey on my back for a long time. Hopefully this will be a bit of closure for me after eight years.”
And earlier this month, before the first claims of bullying and sexism against Sutton emerged, Batey took to Facebook to offer his views on the exclusion of four top Team GB BMX riders from the national team for the World Championships in Colombia.
“Four amazing GB riders deemed not good enough to race at the World Championships where Olympic places are on the line and four years worth of work and sacrifice are being totally disregarded for the sake of one race,” he said.
“The money spent over the last four years per rider on travel, equipment, testing, various coaching for them, hours of training, time spent away from family, sacrifices etc to then pull their opportunity at the last minute just doesn't make sense especially when it happened to one of the four riders two years ago who then independently went to the Worlds in Rotterdam where he won a bronze medal.
“Maybe (British Cycling) just don't want to be embarrassed again to let anyone make their own way to a World Championships and prove them wrong.
“It's such a shame for the riders and our sport but all we can do is back them and from personal experience this will mean a lot to them all.
“Longer term, what knock on effect it will have for parents or even riders to want to be involved in the GB BMX pyramid when it can have such a negative effect on them not only professionally but personally too. I never thought anything like this would ever happen again.”
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