Former track cyclist, Wendy Houvenaghel has accused British Cycling of `ageismī and said she was `frozen outī of opportunities in the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games despite being one of their top performers at the time. In an interview with the BBC, Houvenaghel also said that British Cycling adopted a `win at any costī culture and showed no concern for her welfare when she was dropped from the squad. Previously a dentist, Houvenaghel came to cycling in 2002, and following a series of time trial titles she took her first track title in 2005. Her first world title came in the team pursuit in 2008, and she was part of the three-woman team until the 2011 World Championships, where she won her final world title. She rode the individual pursuit in the 2012 Worlds but was not selected for the team pursuit. `Zero regard, they didnīt care for what happened to me afterwards,` Houvenaghel told the BBC. `For me, I felt that it was ageism. I was a little bit older than my teammates, and it didnīt seem like it was something that the staff wanted for 2012.ADVERTISEMENT `It was really in January of 2012 that I really felt like I was being thrown out of the team. That was my own experience. After six years of constantly medalling, on the track on the road, they discarded me in a very undignified way. `I donīt think that the fastest team on the day was permitted to race... It definitely wasnīt about performance because weīd already proved in the week before and in the lead-up to the competition that I was performing very well, and there was no reason not to include all four members in the actual racing.` British Cycling has been under the spotlight since April 2016 after Jess Varnish made allegations of sexism against the then technical director Shane Sutton. An internal investigation was launched as well as an external, independent one. The internal investigation upheld Varnishīs allegations, but only on one count - which was later criticised by the external investigati ...
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