Shane Edwin Sutton OBE (born 13 June 1957 in

Moree, New South Wales Moree is a town in Moree Plains Shire in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Mehi River, in the centre of the rich black-soil plains. The town is located at the junction of the Newell Highway and Gwydir Highwa ...

) is an Australian-born former professional

racing cyclist Cycle sport is competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, and cycle speedway. Non-racing cycling s ...

turned cycling coach, whose last position was as Technical Director for

British Cycling British Cycling (formerly the British Cycling Federation) is the main national governing body for cycle sport in Great Britain. It administers most competitive cycling in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It represents Bri ...

Racing career

He rode under Phil Griffiths as a member of the first British-based

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

team to enter the

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...

in 1987 and went on to win the 1990

Milk Race The Tour of Britain is a multi-stage cycling race, conducted on British roads, in which participants race across Great Britain to complete the race in the fastest time. The event dates back to the first British stage races held just after the S ...

. Sutton was also one of the four men to win gold in the team pursuit for Australia at the 1978 Commonwealth Games along with his brother,

Gary Sutton Gary Sutton (born 27 March 1955) is a cycling coach and a former professional racing cyclist. In 1980, Sutton became the amateur World Champion in the Points Race. Sutton was born in Moree, New South Wales. He competed at the 1976 Summer Olym ...

Coaching career

After retiring Shane worked as a coach with

Welsh Cycling Welsh Cycling ( cy, Beicio Cymru. Formerly the Welsh Cycling Union) is the governing body of cycling in Wales. It is part of British Cycling, the national governing body of cycling in Britain. Over 140 cycling clubs in Wales are affiliated with W ...

, taking the team to a successful Manchester Commonwealth Games before joining the British Cycling set-up in 2002. He was also employed as head coach at

Team Sky Ineos Grenadiers () (stylised as INEOS Grenadiers) (formerly Team Sky from 2010 to 2019, and Team Ineos from 2019 to 2020) is a British professional cycling team that competes at the UCI WorldTeam level. The team is based at the National Cycl ...

but scaled back his involvement to become a part-time performance adviser for the professional team in 2013. Following the departure of

Dave Brailsford Sir David John Brailsford (born 29 February 1964) is a British cycling coach. He was formerly performance director of British Cycling and is currently general manager of UCI WorldTeam . Early life Brailsford was born in Shardlow, Derbyshire, a ...

from his role as British Cycling's Performance Director in April 2014, Sutton was promoted from his previous position as head coach to the newly created role of Technical Director. Sutton resigned from British Cycling in 2016, after allegations of discrimination were made against him by

Paralympic The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...

gold medalist

Darren Kenny Darren Kenny (born 17 March 1970) is a British road and track racing cyclist and Paralympian. Kenny's results have made him one of his sport's biggest stars; his dominance over multiple Paralympics gave rise to his nickname of 'Daz the Destr ...

and cyclist

Jessica Varnish Jessica Varnish (born 19 November 1990) is a former British track cyclist. Varnish was part of the 2014 world record holding European Championships team sprint champions and is a multiple medalist at the World Championships. Biography Jessica Var ...

. Sutton has consistently protested his innocence. An internal investigation by British Cycling upheld one of nine accusations of discriminatory language.

UK Sport UK Sport is the government agency responsible for investing in Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United Kingdom. It is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. It was created ...

, the UK national sport funding body, expressed serious concerns over British Cycling's handling of the investigation.

Awards

Shane was awarded the accolade of Sports Council for Wales' (now Sport Wales) Coach of the Year Award in 1998. Sutton won the "Coach of the Year Award" at the sports coach UK Coaching Awards in December 2008. He was also one of seven coaches to win a "High Performance Coach of the Year" award. Sutton was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

Results

;1978 :

Team Pursuit

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

(with Colin Fitzgerald, Kevin Nichols and

) ;1981 :5th

Herald Sun Tour The Herald Sun Tour is an Australian professional bicycle race held in Melbourne and provincial Victoria, sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The first tour was held in October 1952 as a six-day event. It is now held annually ...

:Fastest time Goulburn to Sydney Classic ;1982 :55th World Road Race Championships :1st Bendigo International Madison (with Danny Clark) ;1983 :3rd Australian National Road Race Championships :1st

::1st Stage 2,

::1st Stage 6,

::1st Stage 11,

::1st Stage 16,

:1st Bendigo International Madison (with

) :1st and fastest time Goulburn to Sydney Classic ;1984 :3rd Australian National Road Race Championships :5th Beeston :1st Newport :1st Stage 10, Griffin 1000 :8th

::1st Stage 2,

;1985 :3rd Sealink International ::1st Stage 8, Sealink International ;1986 :3rd

;1987 :9th Norwich Spring Classic :15th

Tour of Ireland The Tour of Ireland (Irish: Turas na hÉireann, known from 1985 to 1992 as the Nissan Classic) was a bicycle stage race held in August, which ran for 35 editions over a 56-year period. Irish rider Seán Kelly recorded the most wins, four. Th ...

::1st Stage 18,

;1988 :10th

:5th

::1st Stage 8,

;1989 :9th

::1st Stage 5,

::2nd Stage 10,

1990 :1st

in General Classification

::1st Stage 3,

;1991 :4th Mazda Alpine Tour ;1993 : 3rd

British National Road Race Championships The British National Road Race Championships cover different categories of British road bicycle racing events, normally held annually. History Between 1943 and 1958, two separate bodies – the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) and t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Shane 1957 births Living people Australian cycling coaches Australian male cyclists Cyclists at the 1978 Commonwealth Games Officers of the Order of the British Empire Cyclists from New South Wales New South Wales Institute of Sport alumni People from the North West Slopes Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Australia Commonwealth Games medallists in cycling Medallists at the 1978 Commonwealth Games