Shane Sutton

He rode under Phil Griffiths as a member of the first British-based professional team to enter the Tour de France in 1987 and went on to win the 1990 Milk Race. Sutton was also one of the four men to win gold in the team pursuit for Australia at the 1978 Commonwealth Games along with his brother, Gary Sutton.

After retiring Shane worked as a coach with Welsh Cycling,[3] taking the team to a successful Manchester Commonwealth Games before joining the British Cycling set-up in 2002.[4] He was also employed as head coach at Team Sky but scaled back his involvement to become a part-time performance adviser for the professional team in 2013.[5] Following the departure of Dave Brailsford from his role as British Cycling's Performance Director in April 2014, Sutton was promoted from his previous position as head coach to the newly created role of Technical Director.[4]

Sutton resigned from British Cycling in 2016, after allegations of discrimination were made against him by Paralympic gold medalist Darren Kenny and cyclist Jessica Varnish.[6][7][2] An internal investigation by British Cycling upheld one of nine accusations of discriminatory language against Varnish.[8] UK Sport, the UK national sport funding body, expressed serious concerns over British Cycling's handling of the investigation.[9]

During 2017 and 2018, Sutton was head coach for the national Chinese track cycling team.[10][11]

Shane was awarded the accolade of Sports Council for Wales' (now Sport Wales) Coach of the Year Award in 1998.[12]

Sutton won the "Coach of the Year Award" at the sports coach UK Coaching Awards in December 2008. He was also one of seven coaches to win a "High Performance Coach of the Year" award.[13]

Sutton was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.[14]