Former EF rider Lizzy Banks has opened up about her battle to clear her title after returning an adversarial analytical discovering in a UK Anti-Doping take a look at final July.
The British racer was notified by UKAD of a optimistic take a look at for bronchial asthma treatment Formoterol in addition to a low stage of the diuretic Chlortalidone “indicative of a contamination”.
In consequence, Banks has spent a lot of the previous yr making an attempt to clear her title, with UKAD insisting on handing her a two-year ban, she wrote in an entry on her private web site.
Banks wrote that following the 2 optimistic checks, she had “spent the final 9 months of my life investigating, researching, and writing my submissions to ascertain how the contamination occasion occurred” earlier than the case was finally handed to a tribunal.
She wrote that UKAD modified their place simply 5 days earlier than the tribunal, concluding that Banks was “not at any fault and had exercised an especially excessive stage of care always with a purpose to keep away from ingesting a prohibited substance.”
After months of getting ready for and combating her case, UKAD finally got here to the conclusion that Banks bore “no fault or negligence” for the positives and would due to this fact keep away from any sanctions because of this.
“This course of has price me an enormous quantity, actually and metaphorically. My husband and I spent each penny of our financial savings and the large psychological toll has left deep scars,” Banks wrote.
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“However by some means, by all of it, I knew I needed to battle. Proper from the beginning, I learnt of different athletes in the same conditions with a contamination of chlortalidone, whose lives and careers had been additionally being torn aside.
“This course of pushed me proper to the sting and my concern that an athlete would transcend that edge is what drove me to try to incite important optimistic change. With my background in drugs, my luck in life to have had a wonderful training and eventually my dogged willpower, I actually believed that if I could not battle the injustices on this system, then no athlete might.”
An interview with Banks printed by The Telegraph on Tuesday states that Banks and her husband estimated that they’ve spent over £40,000 combating the circumstances, including that she’s now ending her profession on account of the ordeal.
Within the interview, Banks says that she “could not threat placing her household by one thing like this ever once more” ought to she return to racing. Her retirement is official as of as we speak.
Banks estimates that 316 athletes might have examined optimistic on account of contamination in 2019, pointing the finger at WADA for ignoring the issue.
“WADA have recognized there was one thing up right here for years, and but they’ve not performed something about it,” she mentioned.
“How does WADA compensate athletes which were wrongly accused of dishonest? How do they offer them again these two years of life? Repay them for all of the misplaced earnings and authorized charges? Restore their shattered psychological well being? The quick reply is, they do not.”
Now, with out a biking profession to return to on the age of 33, Banks hopes that making the UKAD’s reasoned choice on her case publicly obtainable can assist different athletes going by the identical factor in their very own comparable circumstances.
You’ll be able to learn Banks’ in-depth breakdown of her story and the battle towards the circumstances at her web site, lizzybanks.co.uk.
