Brailsford nearly quit

The news of Rob Hayles drug test failure led to Dave Brialsford, Great Britain's Performance Director, being on the verge of quitting. Rather than do that he has created 'open house' to the testers for members of his squad.

Dave Brialsford

Talking to AFP he said; "They can hire who the hell they want and they can then come into us, access all areas, turn up at any time, go into anybody's house, go into their missus's (wives') knickers drawer if they want to - no human rights," said Brailsford.

"They can do what they want."

"I questioned my job then - for 24 hours I was going to quit," Brailsford, who has held his post since 2003, recalled.

"I thought, 'I'm not doing this any more ... everyone's going to think it's been done under false pretences.'

Brailsford added: "If, as I suspected, Rob hadn't done anything - even then I couldn't see how we could come out of the situation with any grace."

Hayles must now undergo further tests during the next four weeks. In the meantime Brailsford was heartened by the way the 35-year-old responded to questions from his wife.

"She asked him on the phone point blank: 'Have you done anything?'

"It was just something I didn't want to hear - it was like an invasion of privacy but equally I was quite glad I did hear it because I thought, 'If he's going to tell the truth he's going to tell his wife.'

"He's got a young child and she was telling him, 'You better not have jeopardised what we've got.'

"And the way he spoke kind of gave me a lot of strength because he didn't sound like he was lying."

Brailsford said the teams success had not erased fully the pain he felt at Hayles's removal.

"I'm hurt by it, yeah. You can't get that shaken and just brush it off."