As the first Black woman to swim for Great Britain in the Olympics in the summer of 2021, Alice Dearing was about to create Olympic history.
Bad news next: She was unable to wear the swim hat she had intended to.
Dearing collaborated with the U.K.-based Soul Hat firm to market their bestselling item, a swim cap made for people with Black hair, in the run-up to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
The business had asked FINA, the organisation that oversees swimming worldwide, to authorise the cap for international competition the year before.
However, about a month before Dearing was scheduled to compete in the women's 10-kilometer marathon swimming competition, FINA declared that the cap would be banned
because it did not conform to "the normal form of the head," according to the Associated Press.