Williams speaks out on Games cycling incident

Liz Williams

New Zealand cyclist Liz Williams wants better support for female athletes while competing in national teams after speaking for the first time on the drunken Commonwealth Games incident.

Williams, 25, wants to prevent any similar incidents from occurring again.

"In the future, if what happened to me happened to one of the girls I coach I would be really angry," she told Radio Live today.

"We want to put a stop to this behaviour so any girl coming through now can go away with that team and have no problems at all."

Williams was embroiled in an incident which involved fellow New Zealand cyclists Marc Ryan and Tim Gudsell.

CyclingNZ released its inquiry findings yesterday and found Gudsell and Ryan had breached disciplinary policy.

Both were directed to seek counselling within the next three months or face sanctions.

Neither Williams' or CyclingNZ have said what happened on March 19, but Australian newspapers reported at the time that two New Zealand cyclists tried to strip a teammate and urinate on her during post-competition celebrations at the athletes' village.

Williams' mother Patricia spoke last night slamming the drinking culture within New Zealand cycling claiming it was unsafe for female cyclists.

Liz Williams said BikeNZ had been supportive and had given assurances that they would try and prevent female cyclists being subjected to any type of unsavoury treatment in the future.

Patricia Williams called for chaperones to escort female riders in future events.

Liz Williams when asked about the incident said: "when it broke it was three cyclists involved in drunken revelry.

"It wasn't quite like that. My immediate actions that night were getting out of a taxi. There's nothing wrong with that."

When asked how drunk she, Gudsell and Ryan were, Williams said she didn't know.

"I'm really happy that my name's been cleared. As far as I'm concerned it's over and I'm looking forward to getting on with my cycling career and my life and leave it all behind."

Liz Williams described Gudsell and Ryan as "both really great guys... and it's unfortunate they made a mistake, but I'm sure they want to put that mistake behind them and get on with it as well," but she paused when asked if they she was friends with them.

"That's quite a hard question to ask...they have been in the past," Liz Williams said.

She said she had cycled with Gudsell and he apologised to her.

"We've sorted it out. There's no hard feelings, it's all over."

Liz Williams said she had also spoken to her mother about her outburst on radio yesterday.

"My mum's doing what she thinks is in the best interests for me as far as the public eye goes. What set it off is that I was meant to speak at a primary school.

"It had been arranged for a long time, then they said there were parents who didn't want me to speak to their kids, and that kind of hit home quite hard. That was hard and mum was really upset."

Patricia Williams said there was a huge amount of alcohol involved with them and "the whole culture needs to be changed so it's safe for the girls."

Williams said her daughter had been the subject of abuse for the past five years since she made an official complaint about another incident.

As part of the CyclingNZ judiciary's findings, a letter was submitted to BikeNZ chief executive Rodger Thompson listing "a number of concerns from an environmental point of view that it wants to see addressed", CyclingNZ president Wayne Hudson said.

- NZPA