Special report: How can the lack of diversity in British Olympic and Paralympic sport be fixed?

Kadeena Cox, Alice Dearing and Kyra Edwards are all excelling in their sports. But, as black athletes in predominantly white Olympic and Paralympic sports, they are the exception rather than the norm. And they all agree on how to fix the glaring lack of diversity in Olympic and Paralympic British sport: by shaking up the way national governing bodies recruit.

A report by Summus Sports has found that over half of GB Olympic and Paralympic teams at the Rio Games in 2016 had all-white athlete rosters. And while rowing, cycling and swimming are at the front of the pack in terms of bagging medals every four years - and thus are three of the top four funded Olympic sports - they are also some of the least ethnically diverse, boasting just one BAME athlete between them at the last Olympics.

But the solution is not quota-filling, say Cox, Edwards and Dearing, rather finding a solution at the source of the problem - grassroots outreach.

Edwards, 22, who rows for Team GB and is aiming for her first Games next year, says the problem is that these sports are following so-called fool proof recruitment systems every cycle which get them proven results but have little impact on diversity. According to Summus' report, at Rio 31 per cent of Team GB medallists had received a private school education, and Edwards sees this as contributing to the lack of ethnic minorities at top-level rowing.

“I don't think anyone in the GB Rowing team has started in the same way as me," Edwards says of having her interest piqued at an indoor event, and then benefitting from subsidised costs at a GB Start Centre rowing club. "It doesn't make sense to me that there's only one extremely similar route to getting to the team. I feel like [recruiters] probably went to the classic schools where people could afford rowing and it wouldn't be an issue. There's all these things that perpetuate the issue, where they aren't looking for diversity [but] seeking out the people you have already in the sport."

In January British Rowing announced their Performance Vision, with an aim to gear their grassroots programmes towards producing medal-winning crews who are a true representation of British society by 2032. Only around three per cent of their World Championship squad last year were BAME, compared to 17 per cent of the general population, so there remains a significant way to go on that mission.

Accessibility due to socioeconomic background is an issue Dr Marlon Moncrieffe also identifies in cycling as impacting ethnic diversity. Dr Moncrieffe, a University of Brighton academic whose work highlights the experiences of black-British cyclists, says participation remains predominantly white even at elite youth levels.

“The thing is about cycling is it's so expensive," he says. "I follow the national youth series in road and track and I can count on one hand the amount of black cyclists racing at that level. It shows you that it's difficult for them to get involved in the sport and also maybe British Cycling need to do more to attract the best talent."

British Cycling told Telegraph Sport that efforts are being made to tackle the lack of BAME representation in the sport, including through their Access Sport programme which targets city areas they normally do not have as much of a presence in.

In 2016 Cox became the first British cyclist to win an Olympic or Paralympic medal, and is the only black road or track cyclist on top-level funding in Britain's 80-athlete roster. The 29-year-old Paralympic champion in cycling and athletics agrees with Edwards and Moncrieffe, on the key to diversity being in entry-level recruitment.

She cites para-sports that have better BAME representation, like wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby, as being indiscriminate in that regard: "I think [they are more diverse at elite level] mainly because they have taster sessions within rehabilitation centres. So it doesn't matter about your socioeconomic background or any of that, it's just you had a spinal cord injury and that's the only determining factor."

Sport England board member Chris Grant, one of the most senior black administrators in British sport, has similar ideas on changing what he calls the "gateways" to sport, and has been pushing administrators on this topic for years: "We have very effective talent pathways at the moment, but what we don't have is gateways in the right places. A disproportionate number of clubs and facilities are located in leafy suburbs and the countryside."

GB swimmer Dearing says the situation is different in her sport, with harmful stereotypes serving as a major barrier to black people participating. Dearing is hoping to become Britain's first black female Olympic swimmer, and also wants her work as co-founder of the Black Swimming Association to encourage more people from similar backgrounds into the sport. Currently only one per cent of registered competitive swimmers with Swim England identify as black or mixed race and British Swimming says it is working with the home nations to tackle these numbers.

"I think Swim England have attempted to reach the black community, it just hasn't happened and that's where the Black Swimming Association are looking to be the bridge," Dearing, 23, says. "I imagine it's the same for other sports - it's finding the right people to potentially communicate the message that these sports want to get across. Because maybe if you don't have people from that community or lifestyle in the sport, it's very hard to connect with."

But while sports like these are given time to catch up on a diversity-front - thanks to UK Sport's public-funding largely being allocated based on which teams deliver medal targets - sports traditionally played by more minorities are not always given that luxury.

Basketball is one, and has struggled for consistent public funding, not qualifying for the Olympics in the years since London 2012. Former GB basketball Olympian Kieron Achara was "disgusted" upon reading Summus' report, which he says shows an unconscious bias rooted in how investment is distributed in elite sport.

"When we got our funding taken away [after London 2012] I felt worthless, we underperformed and I blamed myself. But then when I look at other sports and the funding they get and other opportunities they get, I think we were never given a fair chance. It's more a subconscious bias in my opinion. Because for every mistake we made, I would look at other sports who made the same mistakes and were still getting funded - so that clearly wasn't the issue.

"At the same time when you look at the infrastructure of UK Sport and the people involved in UK Sport, the sports they came from themselves, then it could be a subconscious factor. I just feel like the whole infrastructure needs to be shaped up a little bit.”

A Telegraph Sport investigation last month found that just three per cent of board members of taxpayer-funded national governing bodies are black, and pressure has been mounting in the sporting world for action to be taken on these issues of representation as the Black Lives Matter movement gains momentum.

UK Sport this week met with all four home nation sporting councils in the first step towards formulating an action plan to target racial inequalities in sport. Dr Moncrieffe welcomes these steps, but argues that there is an element of "negligence" in the fact public funding has been awarded while issues of representation have fallen by the wayside.

“I think when it comes round to the next round of funding, national bodies are going to have to be addressing this," Moncrieffe says. "Some people might want to call it unconscious bias, but if you're in a position of power you need to demonstrate some sense of omniscience, don't you? In terms of who is in your population and what your sport's doing to make things inclusive, because you're being funded by the government and that's taxpayers' money. I think there are some sports who have been quite negligent in that respect."

While Grant has come out of the recent meetings with UK Sport feeling hopeful, he maintains that this is a long-term issue and one that needs to be approached as such: “The people who will be winning medals for us in 2032 are already in secondary school so, in some sports, it's already too late to have a radically different situation in 2032. This isn't an excuse not to do anything. We just need to be really upfront and realistic."