As the explosion of awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement continues to ripple through our society, professional cycling has remained cosseted in a bubble of transfer speculation, internal wrangling over the rescheduled calendar and that most pressing of issues, sock length.
Outside the bubble, the world has been spinning — and fast.
For millions of people, it feels as if radical change is afoot. But what about in cycling? Has any of this social upheaval registered? Or does World Tour cycling remain isolated from other sports, a whites-only zone?
You could be forgiven for thinking so, as you surf the websites of professional cycling’s top teams.
There’s plenty of Belgian, Dutch or British talent, plus kids from the States, the former Eastern Bloc countries and increasingly, Latin-America. We’re all dialled into their hopes, their development and progression, from lowly beginnings to their first appearance in a Grand Tour.
But European cycling remains a sea of whiteness, among riders and team staff. Until now, we have all gone along with it, never once asking ‘Why aren’t there more black kids breaking through?’
The Tour de France champions itself as one of the world’s top three sporting events, alongside the Olympic Games and the World Cup, citing its global TV audience and its reach across continents. And while it can now justifiably claim a huge Latin-American following, it’s not a truly ‘global’ event. Unlike athletics and football, European bike racing is not global at all, either in participation or in diversity of audience.
The reality is that diversity in cycling, compared to other sports, is shocking by its absence, both in governance and participation. For example, British Cycling, the sport’s national governing body in Great Britain, has no black representation on its board.
And digest this startling fact: the Tour peloton’s first black rider, Yohann Gene, appeared less than a decade ago — in 2011, riding for the Jean Rene Bernaudeau-managed Europcar team.
Bernaudeau’s link to Guadeloupe, Gene’s home, has always been strong but racism has also shadowed that initiative when the Frenchman has brought riders over to Europe.
Bernaudeau told the Wall Street Journal that Gene had once been racially abused by an Estonian rider during the Tour of Qatar. “I complained to the rider’s sponsor and they dealt with it,” he said. “I said, ‘be careful or after doping is resolved, cycling will have a racism problem.'”
Almost a decade after Gene made his breakthrough appearance in the Tour, racism still shadows the professional peloton. In 2015, the MTN Qhubeka team complained to the UCI after they were subject to racist abuse in the Tour of Austria. Most famously, Gianni Moscon, then of Team Sky, now of Ineos, racially abused Kevin Reza during the 2017 Tour of Romandie.
Moscon was not disciplined by the UCI and retained his place with Team Sky, the world’s top team. Even now, he remains contracted to the team, which, if you believe that racism has no place in sport, is surprising.
The Italian was suspended by his team for a mere six weeks — a far shorter suspension for his racist behaviour, than, for example, if he had tested positive for a banned substance. He was also sent on what Team Sky described as a ‘diversity awareness course.’
Reza was also claimed to have been subjected to racist abuse by Swiss rider Michael Albasini during the 2014 Tour de France, although the teams of both riders subsequently claimed the case was resolved and “closed.”
Usually, at the Tour de France and other races, the only people of colour you’re likely to see are the guys running security, at the finish lines, or outside the press room, or sometimes working in the youthful caravane publicitaire. The one place you definitely won’t see them — barring some very rare exceptions — is signing on at the start village, raising their hands in triumph on the finish line, or working in the media.
There is no more racial diversity now in the European peloton than there was ten, twenty or even thirty years ago. Compare that with other ‘global’ sports, such as football and athletics. Although at grass roots level, both in Britain and the United States, there are voluble and fast-growing black cycling movements, in the seats of power within the professional sport — the UCI, ASO, RCS, and the CPA — diversity and racism appear almost taboo subjects.
Dr Marlon Moncrieffe, curator of the Black-British Champions exhibition, Made in Britain, is one of those whose own experiences as an elite black athlete have hardened him to the reality of racism in cycling. Moncrieffe’s research has documented both the covert and overt racism towards black cyclists for more than half a century.
He has taken British Cycling to task over the composition of its Hall of Fame, labelled the organisation’s ‘Diversity in Cycling’ report — published in June 2019 — as “propaganda” and queried the inconsistent selection policies that repeatedly ostracised several black athletes who might have expected to compete for Team GB in the World Championships and Olympic Games.
I’ve spoken to Moncrieffe several times in the past year or so. In those conversations he has referred to the London 2012 Olympic Games and what he calls its “velodrome of whiteness.” He contrasts that with the diversity of athletes competing in the Olympic Stadium itself and the Games’ opening ceremony, which celebrated the Windrush Generation and modern Britain’s cultural diversity.
Moncrieffe makes the point too, that sport holds up a mirror to society, and that when black kids see only white faces, either at the local club run, or in the Tour peloton, they turn to a sport in which they feel more welcome. What role models do people of colour watching World Tour racing have? If you were black and British and getting into sport, who would you gravitate towards — Marcus Rashford or Geraint Thomas?
Our sport remains hesitant, mired in tradition, preferring self-absorbed debate over sock length and calendar changes, the raking over of old doping scandals and the glorification of past idols, to taking action on diversity.
The UCI said in June that “Cycling is open to everyone, regardless of their origins…because the rainbow needs all its colours.” Perhaps then, the 2025 Worlds, expected to be staged in either Rwanda or Morocco, will prove a real breakthrough in equality of opportunity in world cycling.
Right now, though, African cycling remains untapped.
How many talent scouts venture to the Tour of Rwanda, compared with the numbers that fly out to the Tour of Colombia? If the effort that has been put into unearthing and paving the way for Latin American rough diamonds was applied to African cycling, would black riders have greater representation at World Tour and ProTeam level?
Yet even the best-known and most talented Latin American riders have also faced similar discrimination and racism when they first ventured to Europe. In fact, while their presence has now been ‘accepted,’ they still are, albeit in more subtle ways.
Nairo Quintana’s move from Movistar to Arkea Samsic was initially depicted as some kind of brainstorm on the Colombian’s part, which if he had been Belgian, Italian, or Swiss, for example, would almost certainly not have been the case.
A similar attitude was on display when Egan Bernal rode strongly in the crosswinds of the early stages of the 2019 Paris-Nice, as if his nationality prevented him from becoming a fully accomplished all-rounder. Once again, if he was Belgian, Dutch or Italian, no comments would have been made.
Quintana and Bernal’s success, and that of those who went before them, shows that ethnicity is not a barrier to athletic success, but that racism and discrimination, poverty, political isolation and lack of opportunity often can be.
In Africa, the Tour of Rwanda is often held up as a beacon of hope for African cycling, and a shining example of the success of globalisation. But does Rwanda itself offer genuine opportunities for native talent to develop? Dig deeper and worrying questions arise over Rwanda’s record on human rights and the government’s use of detention and torture.
Human Rights Watch said this year that Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and other government officials, “regularly threatened those who criticise the government…several opposition members and one journalist disappeared or were found dead in mysterious circumstances.” This then, is hardly a healthy, supportive or stable environment for a sport to grow, or for an athlete seeking to develop his or her career.
And then, finally, there’s all of us, working in the sports media.
The lack of diversity in the NGB’s (National Governing Bodies) is mirrored in every press room in almost every sport. In cycling, we haven’t questioned it, simply accepting the whiteness of our profession, just as those we report on haven’t questioned the whiteness of the peloton.
Most damning perhaps, is the reality that for so many years, nobody in cycling noticed, or seemed all that bothered. As with blood doping 20 years ago, systemic racism has hung around us, seen yet unseen, like white noise.
In truth, there are numerous obstacles, beyond overt racism, to black athletes succeeding in cycling. A chronic lack of role models, a hostile environment, a lack of reference points that mirror their experience, cultural barriers and stereotyping, combine with underfunding, social and geo-political factors, to ensure that the doors remain closed.
For all the Moscons in the peloton, blaming their redneck racism on a sheltered childhood, there were plenty of others in positions of power who’d rather see a white face waving from the podium than a black one, a white face at the head of the conference room table than a black one. Now, it’s clear that that time is over. The doors must be kicked down.