An elite cyclist who has won Asian Cycling Championships gold and competed in the individual time trial against Remco Evenepoel and Filippo Ganna at last year’s UCI Cycling World Championships now faces being ordered to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge by the Home Office.

Mohammad Ganjkhanlou is seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and has been based at a hotel in Reading for the past eight months, telling the Guardian that Reading Cycling Club has been “like family to me” as he seeks to “work my way back through the elite cycling system from the beginning”.

However, the Home Office has ordered the 26-year-old Iranian to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge, a floating accommodation for asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of applications that is in Dorset and has made headlines since being implemented last August by then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, touted as a means of reducing the cost of accommodating asylum seekers.

In February, Labour MP Diana Johnson, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee reported that as many as six asylum seekers were sharing “small, cramped cabins” originally designed for one person” and questioned whether the detrimental impact on residents’ mental health “could amount to violations of the human rights of asylum seekers”.

It was also evacuated last year after traces of Legionella bacteria were found in the on-board water system, a bacteria that can cause a type of pneumonia.

A representative with the charity Care4Calais expressed concern that Ganjkhanlou’s mental health would be “gravely at risk if he were sent to live on the Bibby Stockholm barge”, especially as the Home Office confirmed to the Guardian that he would not be able to take his bike onboard.

Instead, he will be allowed to keep it at a lock-up in the port area and ride it elsewhere.

“The Reading Cycling Club are like family to me. Because I am an asylum seeker I have to work my way back through the elite cycling system from the beginning and the club is helping me with this,” Ganjkhanlou said.

“If I can lock my bike up somewhere in Portland it would allow me to train on my own, but I will not have the chance to rebuild my career under the banner of Reading Cycling Club and race alongside my friends. When I found Reading Cycling Club bright days started for me and I forgot my sorrows a little and got closer to competing again.

“They got my race licence for me. They helped me enter competitions, they gave me the club race kit. If the Home Office transfers me to Bibby Stockholm I will be in prison, away from the cycling that is my life and my therapy.”

The club’s road race secretary Michael Gray added: “If he moves to Portland, he will suffer with not being able to race. His talent and positive mental attitude will be slammed back down to zero. There are no race tracks, road races or race teams near there, and there is no room for him to take his bike onboard. It is his bike that keeps him focused and happy and gives him something to aim for every week and every month.”

He also pointed out Ganjkhanlou’s past achievements in the sport, having won the Asian Cycling Championships’ U23 road race ahead of Astana Qazaqstan rider Yevgeniy Fedorov in 2019, three years before the Kazakh rider won the U23 World Championship road race.

Ganjkhanlou has also finished second in Iran’s national road race championships and competed in the time trial of last summer’s UCI Cycling World Championships, placing 66th in the Stirling-based event won by Evenepoel.

“For an elite cyclist like Mohammad, the prospect of not being able to train with his local club or compete in races is unimaginable,” Emma Clark Lam from Care4Calais commented.

“We’re still hoping the Home Office will change their mind on this, but if they don’t, it would be a very cruel outcome for poor Mohammad.”