Jenny Copnall, April 2016
Following track rider Jess Varnish’s response to being dropped from the GB Track Cycling Team, which questioned British Cycling’s Head of Performance’s approach to Olympic qualification strategy, selection of riders and treatment of female riders, it feels pertinent to consider British Cycling’s approach relevant to MTB XCO {That’s ‘Cross Country Olympic’ – what we know as regular XC racing – Ed}. What follows is a combination of opinion and fact from my 24 years at the top of the sport in the UK.
During the period 1998 until now, we have seen a severe tightening of selection criteria for major championships. Prior to 1998, British Cycling would fill all available places at World Championships, funding the better riders and offering the others the chance to race if they could self-fund. For most World Championships this was entirely feasible and our top British riders would round out their year by representing GB at the Worlds. They had earned this right by being in the top five or six British riders. In 1998 things tightened up. All riders would now be funded but, as a result, the number of selected places dropped. However, there were still 3 women taken to that year’s World Championships in Mt St Anne – I know because, aged 22, I was selected for the GB team. After 1998 selection criteria moved about, sometimes being based on World Cup placings, sometimes on being within a percentage of the finishing time of the winner of World Cup races, sometimes being based on UCI points gained. Until 2004 the selection criteria remained just about tangible, although my selection for Les Gets in 2004 had to go to appeal when BC failed to include a haul of UCI points I had gained while racing World Cups in North America. After that, and likely as a result of my forcing them to reverse a decision, they removed tangible qualification criteria altogether, and major championship qualification, along with gaining a place on World Class, became “discretionary”. This meant that a non BC funded / produced rider could be discretionarily not selected, while a BC funded and produced rider could be discretionally selected, regardless of which rider had finished ahead of the other in competitions. In 2006, having won every BMBS round, the British National XCO Champs, the British National Marathon Champs, and having never been beaten at home or abroad by a UK rider, I was discretionally not selected for the World Championships. BC decided to discretionally select a New Zealand based British rider instead, who had never then nor since finished ahead of me in a competition.
So we reached 2007 and a home World Championships at Fort William. BC did not select any senior women for the race, while selecting various male riders based on both domestic and international results. One rider had not even raced outside the UK that year. I was told that I had been selected to ride the relay on the Thursday. When I discovered that the UCI had a rule stating that all riders in the relay must also be racing in their own races (in other words, you could not bring a relay-specific squad), I thought BC would relent. Instead Dave Brailsford, then Head of Performance alongside Shane Sutton, emailed me back to answer this query. Yes, he said, that was indeed the rule and BC would enter me into the World Championship Senior Women’s race. However, they would withdraw me from the race after the relay on the grounds of being unwell or injured. I found this unbelievable. Not only did BC not want any women to race at their home World Championships, they were prepared to break UCI rules to prevent that from happening. They were prepared to fund all aspects of my trip to Scotland to race the relay, but not prepared to let me stay around to race. Why on earth would that be their stance? To this day I can only conclude that it was as simple as me being a self-produced rider, who spoke her mind and challenged their decisions. I had, on various occasions, been seen to “show up” their funded riders by beating them when riding for GB, and the British Championships each year had become my proving ground where, time and again, I fended off a funded rider to take the crown. I guess they didn’t want to be shown up anymore. This aspect is pertinent now with Jess Varnish who is out to prove them wrong. BC will do anything they can to prevent her being able to do this.
In the end, due to a multi-pronged approach on my part, BC made a late call to reverse the 2007 selection and ended up allowing the full quota of riders to race in both the men’s and the women’s races. This was a victory of sorts, and I was happy to see the women getting their chance to race a home Worlds in GB kit, along with a few extra men, as a result of my battle. Interestingly it was only Nick Craig who came and thanked me for enabling this, recognising the emotional toll it had taken on me. To this day I appreciate that. Of course, much as I hoped it would not be the case, my race was poor. I was utterly exhausted from the weeks of fighting with BC, of battling to get the story out, of dealing with the media, of sleepless nights, and, at times, utter despondency. I was, at the time, four times British Champion having retained the title, a week before the decision to exclude me was made, with a superbly authoritative ride at Newnham Park. I should not have had to go through all that to be able to ride my home World Champs, or any World Champs for that matter.
In the past year, with the support of nearly all former female British National Champions, our Marathon Worlds medallist, our former DH World Champion, former Olympians, and the unanimous support of the Mountain Bike Endurance Commission at British Cycling (of which I am, at time of writing, a part) we took to the Board of British Cycling a request that the British senior men’s and women’s National Champion should gain the automatic right to race at that year’s World Championship. (This is shown below). This could be in a self-funded capacity and only if the Worlds Quota allowed. If World Class is working properly then this rider would already be selected since you would imagine they’d be a BC funded rider already. Regardless, we are talking about a maximum of two automatic selections. The Board turned it down. The thought of losing that complete power of discretionary selection was clearly too much for the Head of Performance, Mr Shane Sutton.
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