As an athlete who has been involved in doping procedures for years – and who came close to missing tests – I feel compelled to defend cyclist Lizzie Armitstead

It might not be an ideal moment to speak up in support of an athlete who has been viewed suspiciously by her fellow Olympians but I’ve been spurred into action after reading so many people, many of whom love to sensationalise, offering their opinions on Lizzie Armitstead’s missed drugs tests. A depressingly dark cloud lingers over the sporting world at present – and many athletes and associations are cheating more than ever – but it’s worth considering another side of the story before reaching a suspicious conclusion.

As a professional athlete who has been involved in doping procedures for many years and has been tested untold times, I have to say, without knowing Lizzie, I feel compelled to defend her. If nothing else, she deserves to have someone show another side to it all. My own hunch is that she is not a doping cheat and that she made a mistake. Something that has not often been noted in reflections of commentators over the past weeks, is that in 2016 alone Armitstead faced 16 tests and all of them were clean.

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I have been tested in all sorts of situations over the years, some more intrusive than others. Every athlete has their favourite testing story. One of mine that springs to mind was after a last-eight match at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. We finished gone midnight after two hours of play and I was whisked off as high as a kite (not on drugs I should add) and exhausted to sit and wait in a back room. Luckily for me, England physio Phil Newton generously stayed with me for support. Time was crucial and every minute that ticked by made a dent in the recovery and preparation for the medal match the following day. I finally put my head on a pillow just after 5am.

Without that test I would have benefitted from two more vital hours in the sack and re-fuelled quicker. It’s part of the deal though and, if that’s the biggest of my issues in life then I’m OK, but the officials did not consider how it could affect my chances to perform over the next few days. I had prepared and worked so hard for the event for many months and years, and the early hours of that morning were a mess.

During my career I have also intermittently been on the same “whereabouts” programme as Armitstead and it’s a pain in the rear to keep tabs on. We give our availability at an address for one hour every day and the testers can knock on that door whenever they want outside of that. If they arrive outside the given hour and you’re not there that’s OK. But if they arrive on your given hour, you must be there and proceed to give a sample – sometimes blood and urine, but always urine. Most athletes put their hour as 6am or 7 am at their home address if they aren’t competing as they know they will be available and can quickly give a sample.

When the call comes, it’s usually not pretty. Bleary-eyed and lethargic, we all – the lovely testers (I mean that genuinely), my girlfriend Vanessa, our two-year-old son and me – try to deal with the situation as well as we can. We offer them tea and I try not to sulk about being woken up prematurely before a day of training. Our infant boy never quite gets to grips with the fact his morning Shreddies must be eaten off a table that resembles a science lab in the company of strangers with clipboards.

Vanessa, a world champion former player, sometimes struggles with it the most. I recall one random Sunday evening test, outside my given hour. We were both more knackered than usual and had just reclined on the sofa ready for a precious hour of television when the doorbell rang. Worse still, I had just peed. I feared for the testers’ lives as Vanessa stormed around the house.

I’m painting this picture from my own experience not to self-indulge but to give you a snapshot of a fairly strange and surreal aspect of an athlete’s life. Strangers have to come into our private homes to watch us drop our pants and pee into cups because some people are willing to cheat. This must be done, but perhaps it’s worth considering this information before you make conclusions about Armitstead’s case.

I can’t think of many professions in which these procedures happen. For athletes it represents a whole area outside their sport, away from their busy routines, and it requires a degree of efficiency and organisation. To put it plainly: when you know you aren’t a cheat, it’s a ballache.

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Some athletes are well organised and discipline themselves to account for planning their Whereabouts tests. For some it’s less easy. My own character dictates that I am hopeless in some administrative situations and disorganised in certain aspects of daily life. I am rarely in complete control of my Whereabouts.

When I am included on the list there are times when that slight nagging voice in my head materialises completely out of the blue to remind me I had forgotten a change of plan in the preceding days or weeks. I’ll then panic and remember that I booked a last-minute train to London the week before, or switched my flight home from a tournament in Philadelphia to arrive back earlier, and forgot to change my Whereabouts information. I have a close friend who helps me but mistakes still happen. The testers haven’t yet called on one of these occasions, but they could have done, and that would be one strike against my name.

The doorbell of my house has even been an issue, and could cause a missed test. Once the testers had to bang on windows and doors to wake us because the doorbell malfunctioned. Had we not eventually heard them, this could have been another strike. I heard about one athlete who did get “struck” from a doorbell mishap. The point is, for athletes like myself, missed tests can happen for various reasons.

The issue people have with Armitstead is that she missed three of them. Of course, on the outside, that doesn’t seem too clever. But as Armitstead convincingly explained in her statement, she is a human being with a family and a life outside sport. Achieving great things in her sport means a lot to her and she is striving to do her very best, but she has other responsibilities and isn’t one for spending all of her time thinking about ticking boxes when a family member’s health is an issue or she has to prepare for a world championship.

I fully understood her comments about not being so obsessed by the sport to remember to modify every Whereabouts submission when something changes. We aren’t all going to dedicate so much energy and time to reading the latest drug reports, and not all athletes will be this organised about it. I’ll do my best to toe the line, I will do every test asked of me, and I certainly won’t ever support drugs cheats or take drugs myself, but there are other things going on and life gets busy.

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Maybe athletes just have to make ourselves organised, no excuses. And maybe all I’m saying simply doesn’t give you reason to sympathise with Armitstead. We do know it is our responsibility, and we are told by governing bodies that we have to treat it seriously and be absolutely aware. It is Armitstead’s responsibility and she will bear the brunt of it.

For some time, perhaps her whole life, she will have to accept that some people doubt her. The horrible thing is that people close to her may now doubt her. This the worst thing of all for any innocent athlete. To think we can risk tarnishing our reputations through a few administrative errors is a sobering thought. It’s a position that athletes, in this direst time for drugs in sport, must consider.

• This is an article from James Willstrop’s blog

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