It might feel unpatriotic to ask why Lizzie Armitstead – the emblem of British Olympian spirit whose silver in London was the start of all that followed – will be here on the Atlantic coast competing in the road race on Sunday, when she has missed three drugs tests. National pride, of course, has nothing to do with it.

After all that has befallen and discredited cycling in recent years, it an area of Olympics competition which cannot afford apparent mix-ups in testing. The reputation of the British cycling team is not purer than the driven snow simply because its performance director Dave Brailsford once told us so. Cycling needs its athletes to respect and adhere scrupulously to the testing systems in place. If they cannot do so, then they should be excluded from competition. Armitstead is no different.

She, like every other athlete, know she faces a two-year ban from her sport if she fails to be available for testing three times in a 12-month period - "whereabouts" failures, as they are known in the sporting vernacular.

Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 Show all 10 1 /10 Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 CHARLOTTE DUJARDIN - Individual Dressage The defending Olympic champion in the individual and team dressage disciplines, barely a competition seems to go by in which the 29-year-old Dujardin and her horse, Valegro, do not increase their standing with yet more world records. The pair are looking invincible. Prospects: 24 carat gold Steve Parsons/PA Wire Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 GILES SCOTT - Sailing (Finn class) Arguably one of the best sportsmen to not feature at an Olympics, Scott has suffered the misfortune of competing in the same event as Sir Ben Ainslie with only one spot available. But Ainslie’s Olympic ambitions are now over. Prospects: Gold digger Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 WOMEN'S TEAM PURSUIT - Cycling Once unbeatable, the trio of riders, which later became a quartet – Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell, with Dani King vying to win her place back – went four years without a defeat before being outdone by Australia at the World Championships in Paris in February. Such is British Cycling’s ability to peak at the right time, expect them to be back on top next year. Prospects: Going for gold Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 ALISTAIR BROWNLEE - Triathlon Only fifth in the world, but the Olympic champion had a late start to the season. He has won two of his three races in 2015 and his rivalry with Spain’s Javier Gomez will be captivating up to the Games. Prospects: Going for gold Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 SCOTT BRASH - Individual Show Jumping The multi-million-pound horse Hello Sanctos has helped put Brash, a gold medallist at London 2012 in the team event, comfortably at the top of the world rankings. He is currently on course to become the first rider to win showjumping’s Triple Crown. Prospects: Going for gold Getty Images Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 MO FARAH - Athletics – 5,000m and 10,000m Britain’s leading athlete may have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons in past weeks but he remains the world’s leading distance runner. A repeat of that golden double over the 5,000m and 10,000m will be a hard ask but the Londoner ought to come out on top in at least one. Prospects: Going for gold Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 WOMEN'S PAIR - Rowing Helen Glover and Heather Stanning halted their successful partnership in 2012 so the latter could resume military duties. Now reunited, they are gradually getting back to being the sport’s powerhouses. Prospects: 24 carat gold AFP/Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 MEN'S COXLESS FOUR - Rowing British Rowing has turned its attention to the eight as the lead boat this year in order to qualify for the Olympic Games. However, the coxless four will once more be the No 1 boat for Team GB in Rio. The make-up of the boat is still unknown but Britain will be bidding to achieve a fifth straight win in the event at the Games. Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 KATARINA JOHNSON-THOMPSON - Heptahlon The 22-year-old from Liverpool has just one Olympic appearance to her name dating back to London, where she finished 15th while Jessica Ennis shone. But she has become the world’s leading female eventer and ought to be Olympic favourite. Prospects: Going for gold Getty Ten British Gold Medal Prospects At Rio 2016 JADE JONES - Taekwondo 57kg Ranked second in the world behind Eva Calvo Gomez, the attack-minded Jones beat the Spaniard at last year’s World Grand Prix and was recently crowned the first European Games champion. She believes the world title would have been hers if not for a scoring system error. Prospects: Gold digger Getty

To miss one test ought to be a shock. To miss two an oversight which should have a competitor ready to make the drive to the tester’s house if required, given that it’s three strikes and you’re out. To miss a third? “Naivety” was a word Armitstead used in an interview with the Daily Mail, which broke the story. But she was 26-years-old at the time of her first no-show. To the wider world, this pattern of behaviour is just rank suspicious.

Having failed, as asked, to provide a hotel room number in Sweden, where was competing at the time of the first failure to comply, she had her mobile phone on silent mode “out of courtesy to a room-mate” when the tester tried to call her. This first failure did not seem to concern her until she failed to show for two more and faced exclusion. She was too busy to challenge it because she had the World Championships just ahead and “didn't want the distraction.”

Thanks to the lawyers engaged by British Cycling on her behalf, she has challenged it now. The Court for Arbitration in Sport concluded that the tester did not work hard enough to find her, though her description of him and his work was breath-taking in its complacency and indifference. “He did not do a good enough job in trying to find me,” she said, as if the official was some kind of lackey.

Lizzie Armitstead crash

We have been here before, listening to stories of why an athlete has failed to be available for testing. It’s a few years since Mo Farah’s people went to the lengths of videoing the interior of his home to demonstrate why he could not hear the doorbell that was rung repeatedly over the course of an hour. That was suspicious, too.

Armitstead fuels the perverted sense of victimhood felt by those Russians who are not welcome here because of their nation’s state-sponsored cheating. As the former British rower Zac Purchase put it this week: 'Imagine what we would be saying if she was Russian.”

The reaction to her if she makes it to the podium will be interesting to observe. There may not be universal acclaim. As Canadian three-time former Olympian cross-country mountain biker Geoff Kabush put it: "First test understandable but I'd be hyper aware about missing second. If I missed second there is no chance I'd miss third."