What a week for sport. And what a week for Scottish women in sport. We’ve seen shooting star Jen Macintosh become first woman to win five medals, Inverurie sisters Kimberley and Louise Renicks both won gold in judo and who could forget the Commonwealth Games’ youngest athlete Erraid Davies, the 13-year-old from Shetland who won silver in the 100-metre para breaststroke. Within minutes of winning her medal she was trending on twitter and her winning smile had melted the hearts of the nation.
Making up nearly half of the 301 strong athletes, and an hour by hour increasing share of the medal haul, the women have helped secure Team Scotland’s “medal avalanche” which has turned Glasgow 2014 into a record-breaking games for Scotland.
According to UK Minister for Sport Helen Grant, the Glasgow games will lead to an increase in the number of women taking part in sport because the London Olympics did too. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, she said role models will boost the take-up of sports.
“We have a lot of work to do but we are doing it,” she said. “Laura Trott, Nicola Adams and Ellie Simmonds are the role models who can make that change happen.”
A pity that the UK Minister couldn’t have thought of a single Scottish athlete to add to that great list.
Scotland’s Sport Minister Shona Robison also highlighted the strong role our female athletes have played on Team Scotland’s success this week and focused on how the Scottish Government is fully committed to ensuring the legacy will increase numbers of women participating and achieving in sport.
For our next generation of Scottish athletes, is it as simple as women, of all ages, seeing other women performing and thinking they could have a go too? Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation say that only 8% of 15-year-old girls are active enough and many are put off playing sport by their “experiences” at school. In fact, four out of five women are not doing enough exercise.
On Women’s Hour games special this week sportscotland’s Mary Alison admitted that their substantial project “Fit for Girls” programme has even given money to schools for hairdryers, straighteners and mirrors in a bid to get image-conscious young women into the gymnasium.
Dealing with schoolgirls’ angst of getting sweaty and how they look after PE isn’t the only challenge. This week my favourite sports presenter, Clare Balding, also called on broadcasters to show more women’s sport on the small screen.
And if you are anything like me I know many of you will have been glued to the TV since the opening ceremony watching the games’ coverage and starting to panic how to fill the void when it finishes this weekend.
You may have noticed in the BBC’s coverage that there is barely a Scottish presenter to be found, with just a few Scottish commentators. What we do have is a wash of male presenters on our screens with poor Clare Balding being rolled out for practically every programme to try to redress the imbalance. She will deserve a medal herself for endurance by the time the games end on Sunday.
There is no excuse in this day and age for this level of imbalance, given the array of female presenting talent on offer, not to mention female athletes to act as commentators. We need more women presenters on our screens and more women’s sporting events broadcast. Otherwise, how are women to know what is actually happening across sport?
Leading scorer on Scotland’s national team Kim Little, who plays for Seattle Reigns FC, is becoming a star in USA, but we don’t celebrate her or her team mates at the same level at home because we rarely broadcast women’s football. A ridiculous state of affairs for a football-daft nation like Scotland. For me it’s another reason why we need a Scottish broadcasting corporation.
We also need more women in the room making decisions. The number of women on international sporting bodies means representation is only around 20%.
Unless that changes we won’t get the infrastructure needed for change or corporate sponsors to invest in female sport, and let’s not forget the right type of corporate sponsor. For example, they could make a stand to tackle the sexism that still exists across our golf clubs and not just leave it to the politicians.
We have a lot to build on from our games, and a lot to be proud of as our athletes and volunteers have demonstrated. We need to use this momentum at all levels of sport to give our women in sport the platform and opportunities from grassroots to giant screen.
And let’s not forget we can give our athletes the opportunity of a lifetime with a Team Scotland at the next Olympics. It would mean we would send far more athletes, meaning more female athletes, to Rio than we would as part of a Team GB but that can only happen with a “yes” in September.