Hailed as the Women’s Games, the London Olympics have set new records for female participation but athletes fear that once the event comes to an end so will the interest in ladies sport yet again.
London is the first Olympics where women are competing in all 26 sports with female boxers making their debuts and the first Games where every country has female athletes with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei now on board.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge proudly boasted that the progress at London was a major boost for gender equality, with equality and neutrality two of the most important Games values.
But women athletes, while enjoying equal billing at London, have highlighted the struggles they face outside the Olympics in generating interest in their sports from audiences and sponsors and are concerned this will happen against after the Games.
British cyclist Lizzie Armitstead used the platform provided by her silver-medal display in the road race to highlight the “overwhelming sexism” that persists in sport in salary and in media coverage.
“Sexism is a big issue in women sport – salary, media coverage, general things you have to cope with in your career. If you focus too much on that you get disheartened,” she said.
“At the moment there’s not much I can do to change it but after my career I hope to.”
Lack of funding and lack of media coverage for women’s sports are blamed for failing to produce strong role models and for low participation rates of young girls in sport.
Figures in a British study show just half of one percent of all commercial sports sponsorship goes to women’s sports while 61 percent is injected into the male equivalent. The rest goes to sports where both genders compete.
The same study also found that only five percent of media coverage goes to women’s sports and 43 percent of teenage girls do not think they have enough role models.
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