Lightweight men: taking the hit for gender parity
It was not a decision rowing's governing body FISA really had any control over. At their Extraordinary Congress in Japan this week those in charge of world rowing had to make a decision to scrap at least one men's event in favour of a women's event of equal size for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The decision has been . . .
A New Year's roundup of sporting inequality
My New Year's resolution? Among other things,to blog here more. Every day I think "that's worth looking at" and never get around to it.
So in honour of that, here's a round-up of some stories and issues which have caught my attention in the last week or so.
Earlier this week the New Statesman . . .
#SPOTY16 - a long way to equality
Last year I blogged about the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, and bemoaned the lack of female representation. It would have been nice to come back a year on and say that everything I moaned about last year had been addressed.
I can't do that.
Last year, Andy Murray won. This year, Andy Murray won.
. . .
Posted in: olympicsrole modelsspoty
Of Bolt, boos and bad sportsmanship
Strictly speaking this particular post isn't going to be focused exclusively on women - yet it is partly sparked by tonight's session spent covering women's freestyle wrestling finals for the Olympic News Service. I've never watched any wrestling before and I wasn't sure what to expect; I had vague ideas of large powerful . . .
The influence of the Olympics on women's sport
In the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics there has been a steady stream of articles looking at issues such as water quality - for rowing, sailing and open-water swimming - and the risk of athletes contracting the Zika virus through mosquito bites.
To date, most of the top male golfers have pulled out of coming to Rio, with many of . . .
Role models
I'm writing this from Rio de Janeiro, where I now am for the next two months to work as a sports writer for the Olympic News Service. I suspect I won't have a huge amount of time to spend on blogging about the Games as I'll be writing about them, but I'll try to keep an eye on the sort of coverage the female athletes get . . .
Posted in: olympicsrole modelsrowingtennis
Attacking with stats
I'm a journalist. I love a good quote, anecdote and observation. But in the past few years I've learned that data can provide some of the best stories.
And in the argument for improving women's representation in sport I think data is a key tool. So before I start looking into the problems I wanted to pick out a few of . . .
