British Cycling have announced that they have suspended their technical director Shane Sutton following on from allegations of discrimination towards para-cyclists.

The latest allegations come just days after Jess Varnish had claimed that Sutton had made sexist remarks to her whereby she revealed that she was told to ‘go and have a baby’ after she had been dropped by British Cycling.

Darren Kenny, one of Britain’s most decorated para-cyclists, has now said that he heard Sutton using derogatory terms to describe members of the para-cycling team.

“The attitude towards them was abysmal,” Kenny told The Daily Mail. “We were tolerated at best. The term used to refer to us was generally “gimps”, with another word in front of that. I know others had an issue as well with not being allowed on the track and not being given time to prepare for competitions.”

British Cycling have since released a statement in relation to the formation of an independent review into the allegations. Their statement read as follows:

British Cycling is announcing the formation of an independent review, in conjunction with UK Sport, of the federation’s performance programmes following allegations of discriminatory behaviour.

We are fully committed to the principles and active promotion of equality of opportunity and we must take any such allegations seriously.

The terms of the review will be announced in due course and no further comment will be made at this stage.

British Cycling then released an additional statement in relation to the suspension of Sutton which is as follows:

Following the announcement of an independent review into British Cycling’s performance programmes, we are also announcing technical director Shane Sutton has been suspended pending an internal investigation into the allegations of discrimination that have been reported in the press.

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