Rower turned track cyclist Yewande Adesida is determined to help make cycling a more inclusive sport that better represents the diversity in British society at large.
As a white man in my 30s, I’m a typical British cyclist. So typical, in fact, that my place in cycling’s demographic profile had never really occurred to me — until now, speaking with up-and-coming track cyclist Yewande Adesida, who knows what it’s like to feel untypical. “When I rock up to a race and I’m the only black woman there,” she says, “it makes me sad still now.”
The 25-year-old Londoner is sitting opposite me in a gastro-pub in leafy Barnes, having agreed to take a break from her PhD studies at Imperial College to discuss her nascent track career — and the uneasy backdrop of cycling’s diversity problem.
Being the only black woman at bike races must feel exceptionally strange, I venture, given the greater diversity in most other walks of life within London.
“You say it’s exceptional,” Adesida brings me up short, “but it isn’t really. At university, for example, I was one of few very black people on my course.” She is right, of course, and the question betrayed my own complacency. “The difference is that cycling is something I have chosen to do for enjoyment, and at the beginning [the lack of diversity] put me off a bit. I thought maybe I should be doing something else, as no one looked like me.”
Taking up a new sport can be intimidating, so it’s important to feel as though you fit in among training partners.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 13, 2019 من CYCLING WEEKLY.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 13, 2019 من CYCLING WEEKLY.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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