US road champion Justin Williams: ‘Being in a sport that is primarily white it was hard not to feel alone, it broke me R

[Steven]

This is a good read
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/late ... oke-425990

Link to the video
https://youtu.be/mDUio9R_R7A

Kudos to Specialized for this marketing storytelling

[JohnT]

There was a local article (Oak Bay News and affiliates - Saanich News etc.) a few years ago that had a similar (not identical) theme... cycling, a sport for white guys. I wrote a reply making the point that there's more to diversity than skin colour. Diversity in cycling (and in just about everything else) is a good thing, but just because almost everyone in the peloton looks similar doesn't mean they are. You'd be hard pressed to find a sport with more cultural diversity than cycling. Soccer, yes. Can you name another? The year that Oak Bay News article came out, the tour was led by (and was won by) a guy from Nairobi and had entries from about twenty different countries (I forget, but I counted them at the time). Loads of different cultures/languages/etc. Sure, Chris Froome looked like everyone else in the peloton, but to consider him just another white guy would be a slight to his Kenyean background. My point isn't to make light of the difficulties Justin faces in getting into pro cycling, it's just to also point out that 'a sport that is primarily white' gives the incorrect impression that it lacks diversity.

[John D]

Well said (from one fully-tenured white-guy science professor, to another)!

Sorry John - couldn't resist.

JD