Representation Matters

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.