OTLEY'S world road race cycling champion Lizzie Armitstead can compete at the Olympics in Rio after winning an appeal against a breach of anti-doping rules.

The 27-year-old faced suspension for three failures relating to her whereabouts which led to her missing drugs tests.But now she is clear to go for gold in Sunday's women's road race.

The 2012 Olympic silver medal winner took her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport who ruled procedures were not followed for one test, which was declared void.

Armitstead missed the recent women's Le Course in Paris on the final day of the Tour de France. Her late withdrawal was put down at the time by her Boels Dolmans team as being due to illness.

A statement on her behalf said Armitstead was charged by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) with three whereabouts failures on 11 July, leading to a suspension pending disciplinary action.

It said the first came at a World Cup event in Sweden on 20 August, 2015, the second was an administrative failure on 5 October and the third was a missed test on 9 June this year following "an emergency change of plans due to a serious illness within her family".

Armitstead did not dispute the second two faults, but successfully appealed to Cas over the first missed test.

"Cas ruled that the Ukad doping control officer had not followed required procedures nor made reasonable attempts to locate Armitstead," said the statement.

"Cas also ruled that there was no negligence on Armitstead's part and that she had followed procedures according to the guidelines."

A British Cycling spokesman said: "We are satisfied that the matter has now been resolved and look forward to Rio, where we have full confidence that the team will be a great success."

Armitstead added: "I understand how important it is to be vigilant in my role as a professional athlete and realise the potential implications this could have had.

"I would like to thank British Cycling and the team around me for all of their help and support. I am very much looking forward to putting this situation behind me and firmly focusing on Rio again after what has been an extremely difficult time for myself and my family."

A Ukad spokeswoman said: "We recognise that mistakes do happen and plans can change at short notice, which is why an athlete can accrue a combination of three missed tests or filing failures in 12 months under the World Anti-Doping Code.

"But athletes have a responsibility to ensure they support and follow the system, or they risk a possible two-year ban."