Howden focusses on positives in British Cycling annual report

In March, Great Britain topped the medal tables at the UCI Track World Championships in London, before going on to reign supreme at the Olympics and Paralympics, and heading to the summit of the rankings at the winter's two World Cups, so far.

The year's annus mirabilis began with Jess Varnish's accusations of sexism against British Cycling's technical director, Shane Sutton.

Allegations of the Australian using offensive language when talking about the nation's para-cyclists soon followed, with British Cycling academy graduate Simon Yates being found guilty of a doping infringement in April.

News then broke just days ahead of the Rio Games kicking off that Lizzie Deignan had escaped a ban after a missed doping test was overturned, meaning she was ruled not to have missed three in a 12-month period.

And, following the successful Olympics, the organisation was once again mired in controversy over its involvement in the delivery of a mystery package – by a British Cycling employee – to Team Sky ahead of the first of Sir Bradley Wiggins' documented uses of controversial asthma medication triamcinolone.

However, writing in the organisation's annual report, Howden focussed on the positives of the year.

"We are quite simply spoilt for choice when looking back at our elite achievements from 2016," he said.

"This summer in Rio our Olympians and Paralympians dominated their respective cycling medal tables, underlining the amazing talent of our athletes and support staff, the proven effectiveness of our coaching systems, and more generally, the health of the sport in Britain.

"As ever, the work that we do across all disciplines and levels of the sport would not be possible without the tireless, invaluable work of our army of dedicated volunteers.

"Their work does not go unrecognised, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all." Sportsbeat 2016