'Something has to change' - Lizzy Banks calls for overhaul of anti-doping system after ban upheld

Former British pro Lizzy Banks has said “lessons must be learnt” from her experience with anti-doping authorities, after an almost two-year battle ended in her suspension being upheld.

The 34-year-old, who retired last year, was informed of an adverse analytical finding containing traces of the diuretic chlortalidone in July 2023. Through extensive medical research, she was able to convince the UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD) that the substance had entered her system through contamination, and received a “no fault or negligence” ruling. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then appealed the decision, and Banks’s case went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which found in favour of WADA.

Detailing the saga in a 13,000-word blog post published on Tuesday, Banks called out “unequal treatment” of athletes, saying her scientific arguments were “mischaracterised”, and the case law was harshly applied. “The odds felt so heavily stacked against me,” she wrote, adding that she feels the system is “broken”.

“In normal law, you’re innocent until proven guilty, and here you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Banks told Cycling Weekly in a further interview.

A former medical school student, the two-time Giro d’Italia stage winner was originally able to prove to UKAD ‘on the balance of probabilities’ that her sample likely came from a contaminated tablet she took for asthma. She evaluated 15 years’ worth of adverse findings for diuretics, spent thousands of pounds testing medication, and underwent a hair test that showed no trace of chlortalidone in the wider period before and after her positive sample.

Unconvinced by the same evidence, a CAS panel ruled that Banks had failed to prove the source of the contamination – something she argued would have been impossible, because “the tablet had been consumed… it didn’t exist anymore.”

“What they did was change the burden of proof from ‘the balance of possibilities’ to, not even beyond reasonable doubt, but absolute certainty. That’s just not what the rules say,” Banks said.

Banks’s CAS hearing came last December, moments before which WADA submitted new materials as evidence. During the hearing, Banks says WADA’s lawyers were “openly making jokes amongst themselves and laughing with each other”. She now describes it as “one of the worst days of my life”.

Approached for comment by Cycling Weekly, a spokesperson from WADA said: “In no way did WADA make light of Ms. Banks’ case. WADA diligently prosecuted the appeal based on the facts and in compliance with the rules, with the assistance of external counsel, and was ultimately successful before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

“WADA appealed this case to CAS because it felt that the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code had not been implemented appropriately at first instance.”

For Banks, though, the whole process has felt “so bitterly unfair”.

“[It’s] not what the rules say, not proportionate, not fair play, not equal treatment of all athletes, and some of the things they said about me were horrible. It was heartbreaking, and I was already not in a good mental place,” she told Cycling Weekly.

In a previous blog post, published in May last year, Banks explained that the ordeal had left her with suicidal thoughts. She has since been unable to work, and wrote in her latest entry that the two-year process has been “psychological torture” that has “sucked the life and happiness from me”.

Following the CAS ruling, Banks had to launch a further appeal to have her suspension backdated to the day of her original anti-doping control, which took a further three months. “Every step of this process has been a battle,” she told Cycling Weekly. “It’s not just the result that’s been so disappointing, but every aspect of the process.”

Her two-year period of ineligibility was deemed to have finished on 10 May, meaning the saga has now come to an end. Banks is still able to appeal CAS’s ruling, but would have to do so before the Swiss Federal Court.

“I desperately want and need to move on from this now, to put this torrid chapter to bed, forever. To try to rebuild my health and career, to be able to work again and to rediscover the person I used to be,” she wrote in her blog post. “But at the same time, I feel like this has to have been worth something. To have fought so hard and then just walk away will not help to change the system.”

Banks is now calling on anti-doping authorities and members of the sporting community to support her stance that “something has to change”.

“The rules must be updated and modernised to reflect the scientific reality of contamination. The system must be overhauled,” she wrote.

Explaining in more detail to Cycling Weekly, she continued: “We cannot have a system where an athlete, who in the CAS award has been found not to have cheated, to be an athlete of integrity, to have taken the utmost care in every single respect of their anti-doping responsibilities, then has their life and career destroyed for two years – career for longer – because that’s not proportional.

“The WADA rules need to be more specifically clear on what exactly ‘identifying the source of the positive test’ entails. Then the CAS needs to have an external regulator, and it needs to have a clear line of case law.”

A statement from British Cycling on Banks's CAS ruling read: “Irrespective of the outcome, it’s clear the process Lizzy has endured has been confusing, emotionally torturous and at times, lacked the levels of clarity and empathy which we would expect to see from antidoping authorities.”

Cycling Weekly approached WADA, CAS and UKAD for comment on Banks’s claims.

A WADA spokesperson said: “Speaking generally, the principle of strict liability is crucially important to uphold fairness in sport. Without it the anti-doping system would be inoperative. As the CAS panel observed in its final decision, there is a duty to apply the rules, which were enacted to safeguard the important principle of ensuring a level playing field and fairness to all athletes.”

WADA has previously said it understands that cases of contamination are “real”, and it is addressing the issue.

Banks's 13,000-word blog post can be read in full on her WordPress page.