Organisers of RideLondon, an annual festival of cycling, have come under fire after it emerged a photo on their website had been edited to make the event appear more diverse.

The photograph on the website had been photoshopped to include a black woman participating in the event.

The picture has since been deleted from the site, the Sunday Times reported.

The full picture showed a group of male riders, with female riders from ethnic minorities on either side.

However, while the two men shown in the image took part in the event in 2018, one of the women only did so the previous year.

Event director Hugh Brasher confirmed that the image had been created from three separate photos and was intended at highlighting the diversity of people who take part in events, including the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 sportive.

He said: ‘Three images have been combined to create this composite image: the female cyclists on the bottom left and bottom right were added to the central image of the two male riders bumping fists as they come down The Mall.

‘All images are from riders who have participated in sportives at Prudential RideLondon, and there was absolutely no intention to mislead.

‘It is not our usual practice to use composite images and this image has been removed from our website.’

He continued: ‘We know that cycling needs to do more to encourage people from all backgrounds to get involved and that is one of the key aims of Prudential RideLondon.

Cycling writer Jools Walker, who blogs under the name Lady Velo, and is black, said that organisers ‘should be embarrassed’ of the picture.

‘All I can imagine, is a group of white marketing executives looking at this image and thinking, “there’s a problem”, she said.

‘But instead of trying to address why people from these groups don’t see cycling as inclusive, they decide to photoshop in ethnic minority women — badly. They should be embarrassed.’

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