Paralympic legend hits out at sports chiefs over 'toxic environment' and treatment of athletes... and says others are too scared to speak out and rock the boat

Paralympic gold medallist Lora Fachie has criticised British Cycling and UK Sport for their treatment of para-athletes, insisting a ‘toxic environment’ and a lack of understanding about the needs of disabled athletes is leading to unnecessary stress and ‘exhaustion’.

Fachie, who is registered blind, was dropped from the Paralympic programme in March - only to then receive an email last month saying she was back in. However, that turned out to be an administrative error, leaving the para-cyclist once again distraught.

The 37-year-old, who is married to Scottish Paralympian Neil Fachie, has previously spoken about feeling ‘punished’ in her sport for having a baby. She told Daily Mail Sport that she does not want her son Fraser, who was born in 2022 and is also visually impaired, to follow in his parents’ footsteps because of the treatment she has received.

The triple world champion insisted something had to change in order for others to have faith and trust in the paths ahead of them.

‘It makes me really sad to say this, but I don’t want him to represent his country and do what we have done,’ said Lora.

‘I want him to be involved in sport, because I know how beneficial it is, but it scares me the prospect of him getting good at it.

‘It scares me what it might do to him and I wouldn’t want him to go through what I’ve been through at times.

‘I’m very fortunate and I’ve had some amazing experiences, but at times, it was often so toxic.

‘I was really happy to keep quiet about things, but then I got an email from UK Sport last month, and it made me think nobody really cares about us.

‘When you’re in the system, they only care if you’re winning medals and, as soon as you stop, you stop becoming important to them.’

Fachie said she had been emailed by UK Sport in September to ‘congratulate and welcome her back’ into the performance programme. She was ‘shocked’ and ‘confused’ by this, as she had been let go just months beforehand.

‘I’d left the programme in March. It wasn’t my choice, and it had been emotional. I had to make use of support to come to terms with that. I’d been in the programme since October 2009. That’s a long time.

‘Then, out of the blue in September, I received an email saying congratulations and welcome back. Suddenly you get a spark of hope, but it was literally just to pay me back some money they owed me from a change in the funding matrix.

‘In order to pay me, they apparently had to put me back into the system, which instigated the emails. That’s just so wrong, not to even give me a heads-up.

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‘It’s playing with people’s emotions and it certainly derailed me a bit. All they needed to do was email me to tell me they owed me and that they had to put me back in the system to do so, but there was absolutely nothing. I’d rather they had just kept the £250 than put me through that.’

According to Fachie, athletes were asked a year ago if they wanted to continue ahead of the Games in LA in 2028. The cyclist said yes but, at the same time, said she wanted to explore a change in coaching.

‘I desperately wanted to do another Games, but added that I couldn’t continue in the environment I was currently working in, for my own mental well-being. I needed to change my coach or pilot, or both.

‘We needed to explore the options, as I just felt the team dynamic wasn’t working. They said they wanted to explore whether they continued with three bikes or two. They said I was no longer in an upwards trajectory, so I would be the one they would remove.

‘I agreed that the curve wasn’t as steep, as I’d taken time out to have a child, but had then returned to the same if not better form than I was in, before having Fraser. One of my performance targets was multi-medalling, and there was only one other bike with more medals than me. It felt to me like they completely ignored that.’

Before she was removed from the programme, Fachie said she was often left feeling ‘vulnerable’ and lonely while away with the British team.

Last year, she revealed how she was mugged while competing in Rio, and in September 2024, was left alone on a separate hotel floor while competing in Switzerland.

‘I was placed in a hotel on the fifth floor, away from the rest of the team. They were around floors two and three, and I was quite separate. The person I was riding tandem with had to go home between races so, for a good amount of time, I was on my own without anyone to reach out to.

‘On top of what happened in Rio, it made me feel very vulnerable. There were often no sighted people from British Cycling with me. Some staff members were brilliant and would come and help me, but there was an impact of having to message every time I needed something.

‘Every hotel is different. Often, I would sit on my phone messaging people trying to find out if they were going to lunch. You’re dealing with a buffet, you can’t see the food.

'There were a number of times I would feel so isolated and not be able to get out and go anywhere. It doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and only highlights your inadequacies.’

Fachie says she pushed for more awareness training, but claimed nothing came of this. She believes this has to change, insisting she’s not the only athlete who has inadvertently suffered as a result of their disability.

‘The hotel we had in Switzerland was not wheelchair accessible. So British Cycling’s response was to book a wheelchair user into a hotel on his own. When I found that out, I went to the CEO of British Cycling and told him that was disgusting.

‘We were in 2024, and that’s how they treated their para-athletes. To be fair to him, he was very receptive and agreed that things needed to change. But what they did was unacceptable. That wasn’t inclusion.’

Fachie concedes that some of the British Cycling staff on hand were ‘great’, and it’s understood that the wheelchair athlete in question chose to remain in the team hotel of their own volition.

She is adamant, however, that there are athletes who remain ‘unhappy’ and are too afraid to speak out.

‘Too many people are too scared to use their voice. I’m living proof of what happens if you start speaking out. I have spoken to other athletes across other sports and it happens there as well.

'People are too scared to rock the boat because their livelihoods are funding them. We aren’t technically employed, so we don’t have any real protection.’

She insists systemic change is crucial when it comes to working with those who have disabilities.

‘If one positive thing is to come from my experience, it’s that athletes in the future don’t spend hours away in a negative mental state, stressing about how their support needs are going to be met, and taking things away from their actual performances. It’s exhausting. You get to the start line and you just want to go home again. We give so much towards what we do for our country, and it feels like we get very little in return.’

A UK Sport spokesperson said: ‘We are very sorry about the email Lora received from UK Sport last month.

‘This was an administrative error caused when we paid Lora money she was owed from her time on the World Class Programme.

'We are so sorry for the distress this error caused Lora and have already apologised to her for this mistake. We have also put an immediate stop to the automation of such emails to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

‘We are truly sorry to learn of the difficult experiences Lora has had whilst on the World Class Programme. We treat this with the utmost seriousness. We have followed up with Lora to ask if she would be prepared to discuss her experiences with us in more detail, to ensure lessons are learned for the future.’

Daily Mail Sport understands an appeal against her termination failed, with British Cycling working to 'clearly defined criteria' on selection.

British Cycling added: ‘Lora has raised these issues directly with us and throughout our ongoing discussion and engagement with her, we strongly empathise with her lived experience and continue to welcome the opportunity to listen and learn more about how we can improve the journey for disabled athletes, particularly those with visual impairments.

‘Actions speak louder than words and we are currently harnessing athlete input and support from the UK Sports Institute to build a bespoke disability training workshop, specific to our sporting environment, to roll out imminently.’