‘Made in Britain’: uncovering the life-histories of Black-British Champions of Cycling

Great Britain’s emergence as a world force in the sport of cycling over the last twenty years has given rise to a golden age (Wynn, 2015). Prestigious honours such as knighthoods, damehoods, MBEs, OBEs, CBEs have been bestowed upon Great Britain’s top cyclists such as Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Sarah Storey. Their popularity can also be viewed through a winning run (2008, 2011 and 2012) in the publicly voted BBC Sport Personality of Year, cementing their status as national heroes. However, elite cycling like many other high profile sports such as Golf, Tennis and Swimming is generally seen as being participated by white people, where their dominance can be associated with ‘Whiteness’ (Carrington and McDonald, 2001; Delgado and Stefanic, 2012; Hylton, 2010). My paper will present on my plans to use autoethnography as a method of data production for uncovering the life-histories of Black-British Champions of Cycling (Chang, 2016). I discuss my intention to uncover the marginalised stories of those athletes who against many odds have become national champions; European champions; world champions in their own right and have represented Great Britain internationally in the sport of their choice.