British world road cycling champion Lizzie Armitstead has won an appeal against an anti-doping rule violation that could have seen her miss the Rio Olympics.
Armitstead faced suspension for three failures relating to her whereabouts which led to her missing drugs tests.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) said procedures were not followed for one test, which was declared void.
The 27-year-old won a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics.
A statement on her behalf said Armitstead was charged by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) with three whereabouts failures on 11 July, leading to a suspension pending disciplinary action.
It said the first came at a World Cup event in Sweden on 20 August, 2015, the second was an administrative failure on 5 October and the third was a missed test on 9 June this year following “an emergency change of plans due to a serious illness within her family”.
Armitstead did not dispute the second two faults, but successfully appealed to Cas over the first missed test.
“Cas ruled that the Ukad doping control officer had not followed required procedures nor made reasonable attempts to locate Armitstead,” said the statement.
“Cas also ruled that there was no negligence on Armitstead’s part and that she had followed procedures according to the guidelines.
bbc.com
