Women cyclists 'unsafe' in NZ team

Liz Williams

The mother of New Zealand Commonwealth Games cyclist Liz Williams has attacked the "destructive, unsafe" environment of drinking and abuse in the national team.

Patricia Williams was responding after cyclists Marc Ryan and Tim Gudsell yesterday escaped punishment for an incident involving her daughter at the Melbourne Games in March.

"I would really rather have a far fuller investigation into the whole culture of Cycling New Zealand and the events that have happened over the past five or six years," she told Radio Sport.

"It's a very destructive culture and very unsafe for all the girls who go away with the NZ cycling team.

"I've long said that there should be a chaperone going with the girls because they have been unsafe for a very long time."

Ryan, 23, and Gudsell, 22, were found to have breached their contracts and the sport's disciplinary policy in the Games episode.

Cycling NZ refused to reveal what happened, but newspapers reported at the time that two NZ cyclists tried to strip a teammate and urinate on her during post-competition celebrations at the athletes' village.

The head of the NZ Games team, Dave Currie, initially denied the claims.

He told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper: "There hasn't been an incident. She has not made a complaint."

But the next day he told a press conference: "I want to confirm there was an incident that happened a couple of days ago involving three members of our cycle team arriving home in the village in the early hours of the morning."

The day after the incident, team management read out a prepared statement from Liz Williams, saying it was a "non-event".

Her mother said the statement was designed to keep the incident out of the media because her daughter feared a backlash.

"I was with my daughter [when the incident became public] and I was absolutely appalled."

Cycling NZ president Wayne Hudson yesterday would not reveal what happened.

He disagreed that the incident should be aired fully, given a long history of New Zealand cyclists running into trouble.

"Transparency doesn't actually mean going back over the incident and looking at the dirty, grubby details of it all which everybody has been reporting."

Mr Hudson agreed the incident was unsavoury, but he declined to say whether press reports were accurate.

He felt it was better for Williams, 25, to have the matter dealt with confidentially.

Mr Hudson said Ryan and Gudsell had been directed to seek counselling with a New Zealand Academy of Sport adviser and to seek a session with a sports psychologist to deal with "post-competition issues".

Both were still eligible to ride for New Zealand.

Mr Hudson said that if the pair failed to undertake the therapy within three months, or Cycling NZ received further reports of misconduct within 12 months, they would face possible sanctions.

Patricia Williams said that the punishment was not enough and did not address the root of the problem.

She wanted an in-depth investigation into Cycling NZ's culture.

Mr Hudson agreed the panel's findings could be interpreted as a limp response to serious allegations.

The panel had "thrashed out" for days what steps to take but was satisfied with the outcome, given the cyclists' previous clean records.

He told the Herald the panel listed a number of issues with Cycling NZ from the incident, among them a concern that, for the first time, the team did not have an independent team manager to watch over them at the Commonwealth Games.

When asked to respond to Mrs Williams' comments, he said: "She must be quite upset about things, and we're not altogether happy with the way things have gone ... the fact is we have here a culture within all sport where excessive celebration is tolerated and almost condoned."

He said immediate suspension would have harmed the cyclists' careers.

"If I can hold someone to account for their behaviour for a year with no similar incidents happening again, aren't I better off and have two very good athletes who inside a year will be behaving properly?"

Asked if there was an ingrained culture of bad drinking habits in NZ cycling, Mr Hudson said he had had only one complaint involving alcohol in his three years as president and none relating to harassment.

He had dealt with 15 disciplinary and doping complaints in that time.

"Yes, there are bad aspects of the behaviour amongst a certain type of cyclists, but I don't know if it's any different to any other sport."

Ryan said yesterday that he regretted the incident and that it detracted from athletes' performances.

Gudsell and Liz Williams could not be reached for comment.

- Derek Cheng, NZPA