Organizers of the British National Omnium Championship barred a transgender cyclist from competing in its women’s race Saturday.
The Union Cycliste Internationale announced Wednesday that Emily Bridges, a biological man who began identifying as a woman in 2020, was ineligible to compete. The UCI’s national championship would have been Bridges’s first women’s race.
Bridges finished 43rd out of 45 riders in the elite men’s criterium at the Loughborough Cycling Festival last May and was second to last in the Welsh National Championship men’s road race in September, a 12-kilometer lap behind the winner. This past February, the 21-year-old won the men’s British Universities Championship for Cycling.
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These competitions as a male cyclist reportedly disqualified Bridges from the national championship.
British Cycling, Britain’s main governing body for the sport, issued a statement saying it was “engaged closely with Emily and her family regarding her transition” and “in close discussions with the UCI.”
“We acknowledge the decision of the UCI with regards to Emily’s participation, however we fully recognise her disappointment with today’s decision,” the statement reads. It goes on to call for a coalition of transgender and nonbinary cyclists.
In an Instagram post on a now-private account, Bridges wrote, “I’ve been relentlessly harassed and demonised.”
All In Racing, a pro-LGBT initiative for cyclists, also released a statement calling Bridges “a talented bike racer and incredibly brave.”
“Emily’s story this week is not about the place of trans women in cycling,” the group wrote. “Rather, it’s about an enthusiastic racer with a deep love of the sport who has been continuously and rigorously complying with the rules and regulations set about by the sport’s governing bodies, only to have her opportunity taken from her at the last minute without a full and complete justification.”
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Bridges claimed in the private social media post that the UCI had access to all the necessary medical evidence that made cyclists eligible to race.
