How Does Sport Bring Communities Together?

_{Title Picture - Professional female cyclists on road bikes at sunset (Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images)}

^{Harry Crowe investigates the importance and significance of how sport and physical activity can benefit people and communities through a range of social and cultural outcomes and what more needs to be done to help further raise awareness. This article focuses on the 'One in a million' campaign.}

'Around 11.8 million women across the UK are insufficiently active, compared to 8.3 million men', according to analysis from the British Heart Foundation.

The report revealed that '36 per cent of women are more likely to be physically inactive than their male counterparts' and 'the North West of England has the highest proportion of people (47 per cent) who failed to meet the government's recommendations'.

A solution... why not take up cycling?

In a sport where Laura Kenny, Victoria Pendleton and Dame Sarah Storey are just a few selected role models, with a combined 16 Olympic/Paralympic medals between them. Women's cycling is growing, especially in Europe.

But more can still be done to help elevate the sport to new heights as this evidence from Sustrans on Bike Life report shows, 'Across genders cycling is not evenly distributed particularly in countries where cycling participation is low. In the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia women's participation in cycling is at 30 per cent or less while in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands its 45 per cent or sometimes higher'.

Despite their record of achievement in producing talented female stars, British Cycling wanted to evolve and contribute even more to women's participation. So, they came up with the idea of developing an extremely exciting project.

A new initiative called 'One in a million'.

“In 2013, British Cycling set out its vision to ‘inspire one million more women to ride, race and be part of British Cycling by 2020,” says Jill Puttnam, Head of Programme Design at British Cycling.

“Over the first 6 years we have influenced 831,638 women to take up cycling. As we approach the end of the 7-year strategy period we know we are close to achieving the one million more women target. In addition to the headline goal of getting one million more women on bikes, the strategy also set out to create opportunities to ride and race, develop a pathway that keeps women engaged, get more women running the sport, get more women involved in governing the sport and increase female membership.

“We have seen significant growth in many of these priority areas over the past 7 years. The number of opportunities for women to ride and race has grown significantly down to programmes like HSBC UK Breeze, which offers free, guided, women-only rides, whilst the percentage of female entrants in sportives and competition has increased from 17.6 per cent to 26.2 per cent.”

British Cycling began their partnership with HSBC UK in January 2017 and have not looked back. Together, they offer a wide range of participation programmes such as, HSBC UK Breeze, HSBC UK Ready Set Ride, HSBC UK Let's Ride, HSBC UK Go-Ride, HSBC UK Guided Rides and HSBC UK Ride Social.

Their long-term ambition is to 'make cycling the most popular sport and activity in the UK'.

“The #OneinaMillion comms led campaign was designed with two aims; 1) to reach a new audience and 2) to bring all aspects of the women’s strategy together,” says Jill.

“Through the campaign we hoped to inspire, enable, and empower women to cycle, promote diverse case studies to show cycling is for everyone, signpost opportunities to turn motivation into activation and tackle the perceptions preventing women from engaging in cycling.”

They not only influenced thousands of women to get involved in cycling but also grew their numbers remarkably behind-the-scenes at board level.

“On launch day #OneinaMillion reached 582,000 people, through all social media channels combined and the hashtag trended organically in the UK,” she said.

“Over 160,000 people watched the campaign film. Post launch we have seen an increase in the number of unique users to our women’s hub page.

“Three years ago, British Cycling appointed its first female Chief Executive and the Board is now made up of more females than males. We have focused on growing the number of females coaches and volunteers. Our female membership has grown 20,000 over the strategy period.”

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) have also made huge strides in improving gender equality. 'Across the 26 IOC commissions, 42.7 per cent of the positions will be held by women' - an historic high. In contrast to 2017, it's an 'increase of 16.8 per cent' and a 'remarkable improvement of 98 per cent' since 2013.

'Out of 11,444 athletes at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, 5,176 who participated were women', at the time it was a new record set. However, in Tokyo, its 'predicted to be 48.8 per cent' - the most gender equal for female participation in the history of the games.

This is something which British Cycling can use in their favour, adds Jill: “In 2020 we’ll be looking to harness the inspiration of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games; to take our sport to new audiences and encourage people from different backgrounds and communities to get involved themselves, whether that’s riding competitively, for fun, volunteering, or spectating.

“British Cycling is always looking for new and innovative ways to get people from different backgrounds out on their bike and we know that campaigns can be a really effective way of breaking down barriers to make this happen.”

The 'One in a million' campaign offers encouragement to all women and young girls who want to achieve their potential within the sport so that one day those who have participated can pass on their knowledge, experience and expertise to the next generation, continuing the process of inspiring millions around the world.

However, for those who are seeking to explore a different profession, such as the media industry for example, Jessica Creighton, a presenter at Sky Sports News, offers advice to any aspiring reporter, who are looking to pursue a career in the spotlight, adding: “The media industry is notoriously difficult to break into. What I say to young people striving to get their foot in the door is: what is your unique selling point? What makes you stand out from the hundreds or even thousands of others applying for the same job?”

Moral of the story, regardless of background or gender, there are no boundaries to getting involved in sport or at least, they shouldn't be.