Cyclist Emily Bridges started hormone therapy last year
Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges has been declared ‘ineligible’ to ride this weekend (2-3 April) in the British National Championships women’s Ominium race.
Bridges was initially allowed to sign up, under British Cycling’s intersex and transgender rider policy.
But later that organization announced, in a statement, that it had been informed “by the International Cycling Union (UCI) that (…) Emily is not eligible to participate in the event.”
The event will take place on Saturday, in Derby, with the special presence of five-time Olympic champion Laura Kinney.
According to information from the British newspaper The Guardian, Emily Bridges will have to wait for her UCI registration as a male runner to expire before she can compete in the female category. The athlete started taking hormonal therapy last year.
British cycling regulations, updated in January 2022, require evidence of low testosterone for 12 months before a race.
The initial decision to authorize Bridges to compete this weekend generated a great deal of controversy. Other athletes threatened to boycott the race.
“It was not fair to ask Laura Kenny and other runners, who would have faced Bridgers, to run with a competitor with the advantages of a biological man,” former British Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies, in turn, declared this Thursday (31) to The Times. , claiming that “there is no lowering of testosterone that can mitigate this.”
