Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges in line for lottery funding if allowed to compete

UK Sport says it will support transgender cyclist Emily Bridges with lottery funding in the build up to the Paris 2024 Olympics if she is allowed to compete in the women’s category.

The confirmation by the funding body for British Olympic and Paralympic sport came less than 24 hours after Boris Johnson said he did not believe “biological men should be competing in female sport events”.

The UK Sport chief executive, Sally Munday, said that Bridges would be entitled to public funding up to £27,000 a year, plus benefits, if world cycling’s governing body, the UCI, allow her to compete as a woman – and also praised her “incredible resilience”.

Related: Head of Team GB Olympic cycling calls for transgender rule change

“We will support every or any athlete who a sport or governing body has deemed to have future potential and is eligible to compete,” said Munday. “I have huge empathy for everyone involved in this. I have huge empathy for Emily. I have huge empathy for the women whom she would have been potentially competing against. I think this is a complex topic.

“Emily has shown incredible courage, incredible resilience, and huge determination. When you are in the centre of something which is of national interest, which this has become, then clearly that creates a pressure and environment on any individual. But this isn’t simply about Emily. This is a much bigger topic.”

Bridges, who set a national junior men’s record over 25 miles in 2018, had hoped to race as a woman for the first time at the British National Omnium Championships last Saturday before the UCI ruled she was ineligible.

That ruling came after Bridges’ competitors held talks about a boycotting the event in protest at the UCI’s transgender rules – requiring