By Liam Hess, Vogue — July 6, 2021
British specialist brand Soul Cap, which produces swimming caps for Afro hair, received a rejection from FINA — the water sports world governing body — for their caps to be worn at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics. FINA cited the fact that the caps do not follow “the natural form of the head” and that no athletes “need caps of such size.” This news came just over a week after British swimmer Alice Dearing, co-founder of the Black Swimming Association, had qualified to become the first Black female swimmer to compete on Team Great Britain — making the ruling a global wake-up call on how much progress there is still to be made for greater inclusivity in aquatic sports.
Soul Cap co-founders Michael Chapman and Toks Ahmed began developing the cap after taking swimming lessons together as adults in 2017, having grown up feeling discouraged from participating due to the lack of Black representation in the sport. After launching Soul Cap, they shipped more than 30,000 caps and partnered with charitable foundations working to broaden access to aquatic sports. FINA’s statement — particularly the phrase “the natural form of the head” — carried what aquatic empowerment advocates described as “chilling echoes of the eugenics movement and scientific racism.” The ban on Soul Cap also feeds into the self-perpetuating cycle of minority exclusion in swimming: when FINA states that elite athletes never needed caps of such size, they not only confirm the historic lack of Black athletes at the highest levels of the sport but also exclude a new generation of potential swimmers. A 2020 study in the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education found that “systematic exclusion from public pools” has resulted in Black youth being 2.6 times more likely to die from drowning. “Swimming is a life skill — it’s the only sport that can save your life,” noted Thurman Thomas of the Tankproof organisation. Following widespread backlash, FINA released a statement saying it was “currently reviewing the situation.”