Of the 148 British-registered riders racing for UCI teams in 2025, just one is from an ethnic minority. Sannah Zaman, who is of Pakistani heritage, rides for women’s UCI Continental team CJ O’Shea. She is – as far as Cycling Weekly can confirm – just the second British-registered rider of colour in the modern era to race for a UCI team. The first was Germain Burton, son of legendary cyclist Maurice Burton, who competed for JLT-Condor in 2018.
Road cycling in the UK lags far behind its elite sporting cousins in terms of representing the country’s ethnic diversity. At the Paris Olympic Games last year, 37% (25 of 67) of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s athletics squad were non-white. Compare that to cycling, where, across all disciplines, the GB team included just one person of colour in a squad of 36 riders (3%). In the country at large, around 18% – nearly one-fifth of the population is non-white.
