Mick Hartley

Women's cycling in the UK has in recent years been a remarkable success story, with Olympic gold medals aplenty. Now, with all those goodies on offer, a man is planning to grab some of the glory for himself:

Top women cyclists who have helped Great Britain to historic triumphs face losing their team places after a trans woman announced she would now compete in female events.

Emily Bridges has continued to race against men for the past year while undergoing hormone therapy, and her successes include a gold medal at the recent University Championships in Nottingham.

However, her testosterone levels are now low enough to meet the criteria set out by British Cycling, the sport's governing body, for her to compete against women.

Critics claims that despite the hormone treatment, Ms Bridges will still have an unfair advantage over her female rivals.

Critics? Anyone with a brain can see it's an unfair advantage. He's a man, ffs. And a pretty decent cyclist, it seems. Testosterone levels mean next to nothing compared to the huge advantage he has as a biological male having gone through puberty. But we've been over all this so many times already…

Before coming out as trans, Ms Bridges set the Junior Men's national record for 25 miles in 2018 with a time of just over 47 minutes – two minutes faster than the current national record for adult women.

The 21-year-old recently spoke candidly about her transition and revealed it was 'always the plan' to compete in women's events.

'After starting hormone therapy I didn't want to race in the male category any more than I had to,' she told Cycling Weekly magazine.

Well no. He wouldn't be winning any more. A switch to women's cycling pretty much guarantees that those lovely wins and records and medals will keep on coming. And to hell with the women cyclists.

British Cycling said its trans inclusion rules were set after a broad consultation. 

A spokesman added: 'We believe that the updated policy reflects the current evidence available to us. However, we acknowledge that more research into this area is required.'

No, more research isn't needed. What's needed is some backbone.