Olympic legacy – take 2

We’ve just had 2 days of parades and receptions to celebrate the (amazing) achievements of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes. The benefits of funding at the top level of sport are clear, as is the targeted approach to funding those sports where we have best chance of winning medals.

But at grassroots level, participation is dropping. I saw a report where it said 1/3 people do no sport at all, and that situation is worse for women rather than men, with many girls not doing any sport after they leave school (ie once they aren’t forced to)

What can be done – I used to think it was more volunteering, more parents running sports clubs, and so on, but I’m rethinking. How do we turn 2 successful olympic performances into participation in physical recreation – and are traditional sports / sports clubs / leagues the right vehicle for it in the 21st century? Or in this app based world, is there a different way?

Dont call it sport for a start.

School sports have a lot to do with putting people off sport for life.

There could be a nice tech solution for adult sport. Joining a club or playing in a league is bit of a commitment and can be over competitive. I play various sports for fun and pretty casually. We arrange and recruit via gumtree and Facebook but it’s all a bit ad hoc and you get loads of no shows. When it works it works well but it could be improved.

Also the cost and availability of venues is pretty prohibitive. I’d love to make ours cheaper for kids and new players but that wouldn’t be sustainable.

School sports have a lot to do with putting people off sport for life.

This! When I was at school only those who were already decent at sports were nurtured/encouraged which just made it even more cliquey. Dunno what it’s like now but if PE teachers are still shit then that would be a great place to start IMO.

My daughters school being only 80 pupils has an external company come in called Multi-Sports and they run the in hours PE lessons and after school clubs too, and they have been brilliant, they really mix up the sports they do and make it really fun for them and they all rave about it.

I think that if kids enjoy sport from an early age and don’t think of it as a chore (running cross country in the peeing rain), and you couple that with education about exercise, nutrition and why it is important then we might be able to see a change.

It amazes me that you call learn about complex matters in biology, but not why exercise and diet is of benefit to you, in the same way that in maths you can learn advanced geometry, but not how to calculate tax, interest rates or your mortgage? Why not include actual life skills as part of teaching

That’s becoming my thought. I’m ‘lucky’; I was always one of the good at sport kids and hence inevitably I played for school teams, got the attention, stuck with sport after school through University and into adulthood, and got all the benefits of not just fitness and health but working as a team, managing individuals, and so on. And hence I’m somewhat biased about sport as being good for people.

But I suspect that all the people who ‘run’ sport are from this self-selecting group, and hence don’t know the other side of it. And do the ‘others’ want to be involved in sport per se? Should we change the mindset that you have to ‘do sport’ to be healthy and instead focus on just getting people more active. Accept that there’s maybe half the population that have no interest in sport as a competitive thing, and work on opening up other forms of recreational activity instead?

I was lucky enough to go to a grammar school that had a real emphasis on sport and outdoor activities, we had an active cadet force and would go away for week long “adventure training” holidays to Lakes or Cairngorms, we did the Duke of Edinburgh awards and things like the Ten Tors on Dartmoor, so even if you weren’t good at traditional team sports, there were other outlets. Many of the ex-pupils who were early 20’s and older would come along to assist and you learnt a lot from them.

I think the cost to this would be prohibitive for a lot of schools now though, with the teacher to pupil ratios needed, and every adult having to be certified and background checked, the insurance and equipment needed. You can’t just bundle the group into a minibus and head to the hills anymore.

At school I was always the last to be picked, the “why don’t you just go stand over there and keep out of the way” boy. consequently, I don’t have any interest in rugby, football, swimming, athletics, basketball, hockey, tennis… basically any team sports because I was always picked upon and put upon. School sports was miserable for me, but its quite nice now to see the “school sports studs” now over 30 years later with their huge bellies and bald heads.

But I quite like cycling, and walking and stuff. I just don’t particularly enjoy the competitive and rating side of it.

1/3 people do no sport at all

The converse to that is 2/3rds of people do sport. Not to bad when you look at it that way.

You’re not going to get 100% participation.

Though I have a hard time classifying what I do cycling as sport mind you. Or even getting a kick about at a game of 5s.

Could it be that people just can’t spare the time to volunteer these days? Nor the time to deliver their offspring to said activities?

Is it? Not criticising, just wasn’t aware. The kids’ sessions at our local bike club were oversubscribed in September – somebody attributed this to the Olympic effect, but it may just as easily be that it’s an excellent club and news is spreading by word of mouth. I do after all live in a little middle class enclave and tend to see the same kids and mums at a lot of the things my kids do. Though it is certainly a good model for how to increase participation in sport – it’s also excellent at the difficult transition from juniors to seniors. Though I guess most clubs won’t be able to boast a World Champion and a Commonwealth Gold medallist amongst the coaches and role models! A few other sports clubs around here with good kids’ coaching programmes, it is certainly something which is possible to do, though a lot of work has to be put into it so you need the people who have the enthusiasm and drive. Other local bike clubs run by old fogeys for old fogeys tend to be rubbish at increasing junior participation.

Interesting to see the comments about school sports though. I was the archetypal kid picked last for sports, mainly because I was rubbish at football and TBH I hate my school PE teachers for it, because a lot of it was down to their attitude. Somehow despite that I got into sports that worked for me and managed to be a junior national champion whilst still at school – and I did enjoy kicking the butts of all the teachers in a school “fun” run we did in 6th form, by which point I’d worked out I could run (having trailed round at the back of all the school x-country runs I ever did, having never been encouraged).

Thankfully for my kids, whilst they’re not that good at football either (all my fault, I still hate it) they are at least seen as being sporty with me being the sporty dad.

1/3 people do no sport at all
The converse to that is 2/3rds of people do sport. Not to bad when you look at it that way.

Sorry, i think i got that stat the wrong way round.

There’s also a difference M/F; I think it’s closer to 1/4 of women so 3/4 do no sport. OK, there’s other activities that are not ‘sport’ but are fitness (eg: Zumba) but is continuing to focus on sport itself where legacy effort should go?

I agree with others that in general my version of cycling doesn’t particularly fit the standard definition of sport in that I don’t race (any more) and it’s essentially not competitive, but it’s still a traditional sporting pastime. But should we be putting more effort into other areas or other forms instead of traditional sport? Given that, success at elite level doesn’t seem to be making more people take it up?

But at grassroots level, participation is dropping.
Is it? Not criticising, just wasn’t aware.

Maybe not so much at kids level, although as noted above that in itself means clubs need volunteers to run clubs and sessions. But definitely at adult level. It increased immediately after 2012 and then decreased since – and interestingly a lot of the increase comes almost certainly from non-competitive versions of individual sports – running, cycling, weight training…. whereas the biggest declines are in swimming (don’t know why) and football which barely exists unless as a competitive and team sport.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/jul/05/olympic-legacy-failure-sports-participation-figures

Yet still most of the funding and legacy effort goes to traditional sports. Partly because they are still the biggest (football, rugby, etc.) but they’re not the ones that are most likely to get adults off their arses and participating in.

Honestly I think we should just get away from this “medals are what matters” approach. We’re devoting so much effort and attention towards 1 day every 4 years and disregarding people who we’re worried might only be the 6th best in the world, when what needs more attention is the 3 millionth best cyclist in the UK.. It’s been a success in that we got more medals but it’s like trickledown economics, everyone just seems to believe as an article of faith that if we get more medals more people will be inspired and it just doesn’t seem to happen. (and when it does, it’s not dependent on british success- according to our research, the person most inspiring male students to start participating in sport is Usain Bolt)

Not saying we shouldn’t support elite athletes, we just need to stop pretending it helps schoolkids and couch potatoes so much.

(@theotherjonv, funding for beginner swimming was slashed by the coalition government in 2010, probably hasn’t helped. But olympics!)

Dont call it sport for a start

This

School sports have a lot to do with putting people off sport for life.

and this.

I was a young adult before I discovered anything vaguely sporty I might be interested in. I even did a spot of fell running (strictly non-competitive) which would would have had my games teacher laughing just to contemplate.

Sport needs to be dealt with on so many different levels.

Elite sports (Olympic, etc) is very different from Community Sport. If we as a country want to perform well at the elite level, then we need to fund it (as we are doing). There is very little trickle down to community sport.

I play hockey and my club have seen an increase in players because of the Olympics, but it is just a small blip. On the other hand we have seen a significant increase in players because of our work in schools and junior level.

Part of the problem is that we have one organisation which represents the entire sport, from grass roots to the elite level. In my case England Hockey covers it all. But what may be good at the elite level, may not be good at grass roots (and vice-versa)

As an example see Basketball. At the elite level funding was withdrawn because at the top level we are no good enough. However Basketball is a very popular sport at the grass roots level – and it does get significant funding. When funding was withdrawn from the top level there were complaints that the sport was being ignored. This is because the organisation measures itself by its ability to compete at the top level, regardless to the fact that its grassroots funding was unchanged.

We need to stop linking elite sport and community sport.

What I think we need at sporting clubs, which covers a range of competitive and non-competitive sports / activities. You can do multiple sports / activities within a single umbrella organisation. We already have such models in place, since most Universities offer this through their Student Unions.

But sport is NOT cheap. The cost to maintain pitches, arenas, courts, etc is significant. Many football clubs have complained that the hire costs of pitches have increased significantly. This is because councils are now charging the cost of maintain the pitches, rather than subsidising it. If we want sport to be cheap, then we the tax payer will need to stick out hands into our pockets and pay for it. (At my hockey club it costs a player over £250 a year to be a member and we are not expensive)

Finally the biggest issue. How do we get more women to do physical activity? The benefits of physical activity are well known, but women are choosing not to get involved. We have great roles models at the elite level (in all shapes and sizes) and a many different options from competitive sport to Zumba. The range of options is increasing, but participation rates are very low. Perhaps it is cultural, perhaps it is how we ‘sell’ physical activity at school. But we need to crack this.

Funding elite sport has not worked in getting significantly more people involved in community. It has worked in getting the UK up the medal table and increased pride in our elite sporting people. Perhaps we ought to be glad that it has achieved one of its goals!

Do the people who say don’t call it sport think that suddenly by changing its name everybody will want to do it ? When I was at school , some years ago , we had 1 double lesson of sport every week and 1 double lesson of PE and unsurprisingly the people who hated sport also hated PE .

I agree with others that in general my version of cycling doesn’t particularly fit the standard definition of sport in that I don’t race (any more) and it’s essentially not competitive, but it’s still a traditional sporting pastime. But should we be putting more effort into other areas or other forms instead of traditional sport? Given that, success at elite level doesn’t seem to be making more people take it up?

I think that it needs to be tackled on all fronts, not just seeking to get people into traditional team sports, but anything that makes people more active in general, whether it be running, cycling, gymnastics or freestyle line-dancing and making accessible and inclusive. If you look at the success of something like Park Run and how that has grown because there is no real pressure, people go because they want to and there is a good community and atmosphere.

I have been a member of a number of cycling clubs, the best are those where you encouraged to improve but there is not an elitist attitude, where there are a number of different rides and abilities for you to work your way up, but you won’t be left behind and there is always some friendly banter.

With regards to success at Elite level, if you look at so many of the Olympic Sports, to joe public, so many of them must seem very inaccessible just to look at, how you go about getting into slalom canoeing or pole vault?

While there may be a lot of good running clubs, how many accessible, good athletics clubs are there to take up heptathlon, how many 50m swimming pools or real velodromes?

Do the people who say don’t call it sport think that suddenly by changing its name everybody will want to do it ?

No but sport implies competition which turns off a lot of people. There needs to be encouragement to take physical activity – which might simply be cycling in civvies on properly designed and implemented infrastructure as opposed to seeing cycling as the preserve of lycra clad arse up head down types (just one example).

I’ve been sporty all my life, not a star but competitive, and have always had a “sport”. But honestly I’m not seeing the point of herding people into activities. Just let people get on with things themselves. All the money in the world won’t get people into sport if the don’t like getting sweaty and out of breath.
Edit:
Or to take slowoldmans point “strenuous physical activity”

Nobody is suggesting herding people into activities, but you have to make the opportunity available. That and make people realise that it can be fun. From, er, discussions I’ve been having, the point has come up that it’s important for me to do physical activities, not only for the physical benefits but for the social ones too.

taxi25 – Member
I’ve been sporty all my life, not a star but competitive, and have always had a “sport”. But honestly I’m not seeing the point of herding people into activities. Just let people get on with things themselves. All the money in the world won’t get people into sport if the don’t like getting sweaty and out of breath.
Edit:
Or to take slowoldmans point “strenuous physical activity”

I don’t think you have to “herd” people into activities, but i think that if the simplest of sports/activities/hobbies are more accessible, then people will want to do them.

I’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve spoken to someone about my cycle commute to work only for the reply to be “i’d like to get my bike out and use it more, but riding it on the road scares me”.

Or “i’d like to join a gym, but so many are really expensive”

All the things do cost money to the tax payer, but the money can be recovered if peoples health and well-being improves.

There was a stat that i read a while back, that 82% of all commutes to work are under 5 miles and if just 10% of those short commutes to work were done by bike it would save the NHS 1.86 billion a year.

Lots of half empty glasses in today!

Neither of my kids are competitively sporty, but both are active and get exercise. All the clubs they have been involved with – swimming, gymnastics, football, even Scouts and Guides – are at capacity and have waiting lists.

They love watching sports and attending events, and a lot of this has come about through London 2012 and been reinforced by Rio.

I think we have a generation of time poor adults who don’t take part in activities, but the longer term is looking better, but needs more volunteers and coaches to keep it going, as much as funding.

But none of that works. I live in a city so perhaps not applicable to everyone, but a quick Google can access me any sport I might fancy. Football, rugby, cycling, rowing, athletics ect, ect. All just a phone call ir email away. Sure many aren’t free but most are affordable. If you aren’t doing something already your just not interest.
If you can’t make the slightest effort to get involved yourself, were is the effort needed to make it worthwhile going to come from ?

Dont call it sport for a start.

+1
Elite and competitive sports do very little for most people, who mainly want to have fun and feel better, given the chance.
Until we and our politicians and funding sources realise this, we will continue to see fewer people taking part in all activities and sports – and fund the wrong things to the tune of many, many millions.

Nobody is suggesting herding people into activities, but you have to make the opportunity available. That and make people realise that it can be fun. From, er, discussions I’ve been having, the point has come up that it’s important for me to do physical activities, not only for the physical benefits but for the social ones too.

Yes, this. Which is kind of my question, the ‘Olympic legacy Mk1’ seems to be putting funding into sports that are traditional types of sports, and putting money into the belief that having British medallists in these sports encourages people into taking them up. And as the drop in participation since 2012 shows, I don’t think that it does.

The nation won’t get healthier by winning another 60 gold medals in Japan in 4 years time, the nation will get healthier, with all the benefits to the economy and healthcare, etc., if the 70-odd percent of people who do no ‘sport’ are encouraged to go and do something active….. and while a certain amount of funding needs to continue going to mass participation sports because that’s where the 30% are already spending their time, we need new strategies and funding for encouraging ‘unsporty’ people into some sort of activity.

Taxi25 is spot on. I also live in a city and we have everything going on: water polo, bike polo unicycle hockey, roller derby, touch rugby, rowing, korfball etc. There is football being played in several locations every night of the week but I struggled to find a good game to suit me as it was largely played very competitively. Took me while to find a group that play just for fun, in fact I found a few but they often are a bit flakey with attendance. All the pieces are sort of there but it needs ‘something’ to make it work. The Olympics does help a bit but its not enough, especially with the benefits to health and well being. Not sure what the answer is but it most definitely isn’t the classic school PE model.

Do the people who say don’t call it sport think that suddenly by changing its name everybody will want to do it ? When I was at school , some years ago , we had 1 double lesson of sport every week and 1 double lesson of PE and unsurprisingly the people who hated sport also hated PE .

At school I was average at best at most subjects, Sport and PE were the only ones where no coaching/teaching or support were given for how to improve.
It’s assumed you know all the rules and have the inherent strength/ability to do them. As a muscle-less scrawny-get I had no ability but was expected to just get on with it anyway and compete with/against the bigger, stronger, keener kids who knew what they were doing.
While I liked some sports, they were invariably ones that we did for one lesson a term and then revert to standing in a cold muddy field waiting to be trampled by the bigger/tougher kids, or cock-up an easy pass and let the team down.

Couple all that with them being the only lessons where the teacher would call me names and where I was expected to get naked and shower with a load of piss-taking tougher kids, it’s not surprising that I left school with no desire to take part in sports.

Surely the goal is to nurture an interest in physical activity, so finding things that kids enjoy and coaching them to improve at them should be the goal. I liked tennis, high jump and cycling, but ignoring that and making it all about competition within teams which leaves me to be the worst member of a rugby team doesn’t help anyone…

After spending my 20s in front of a Playstation I’ve since taken my love of cycling from regular weekly rides with mates onto racing and from there I’ve thrown running and swimming into the mix and done pretty well at some local Tris too. All of it is despite school sports, rather than because of it.

</rant_over>

Another one here who suffered at the hands of the School’s attitude towards ‘Sport’.

My school was all about Football (hate it), Rugby (wear glasses so a no-go) or Cricket (BORING!!) so I was labelled as the non-sporty kid who never got picked. As in if there was an odd number of people in the class, which there was, then I was left on the sidelines! This was despite me actually doing a decent amount of sport in my free time: riding bikes on and offroad, played junior golf and did a few regional kart races with a friend from another school. Of the group that did excel at sport in my year now only one is a regular partaker, but then he plays cricket at county level so that’s a blip. The rest are all getting fatter as they’ve given it all up! Whereas I’m out on the bike most days I’m not working, commute by bike every day, do a bit of swimming when I can’t ride to keep me active and do a physical job so there’s not much chance of fat hanging around on me!

It was funny seeing the facebook photos of a recent reunion they had (didn’t go for various reasons) where all the popular boys were now fat and average, took a while to identify a few 😆

+1 for the ‘school sports has a LOT to answer for’ counter.

I bookmarked this thread but it looks like it died. I’ll add my 2p anyway because the “Olympic legacy” winds me up! Yes there’s a feel good factor when team GB is winning medals, but I see little long term gains off the back of medals in the likes of kayaking and horse dancing.

They don’t bother with basketball as we have no chance at gold, but it’s one of the most accessible sports and we have facilities nationwide. Instead, we’re ploughing millions into inaccessible sports with easy medals. I’d much rather see the money invested into facilities and encouraging participation.

Talented athletes that fit a profile who are paid to move to a niche sport in pursuit of Olympic glory does nothing to inspire me.

I play hockey and my club have seen an increase in players because of the Olympics, but it is just a small blip. On the other hand we have seen a significant increase in players because of our work in schools and junior level.

Hopefully hockey has the infrastructure in place to make the most of the Olympic feel good. There weren’t enough coaches in the country to make the most of England’s rugby world cup win in 2003. They ploughed millions into making sure it didn’t happen again after rwc2015

What can be done – I used to think it was more volunteering, more parents running sports clubs, and so on, but I’m rethinking. How do we turn 2 successful olympic performances into participation in physical recreation – and are traditional sports / sports clubs / leagues the right vehicle for it in the 21st century? Or in this app based world, is there a different way?

I think the phrases “You can lead a horse to water….” and “You can only show them the door…” apply here.

I’m not talking about competitive sport, I’m talking about getting people off their arses and being active. If people want to, they will find a way.

From my experience, anyone seen doing activities that aren’t football are seen as freaks, and until that changes, the population will remain as it is.

Similarly, junk food is seen as cool, whereas healthy eating is the domain of the obsessed nutter.

Talented athletes that fit a profile who are paid to move to a niche sport in pursuit of Olympic glory does nothing to inspire me.

It’s not so long ago cycling would have been considered niche and I’m sure it still is by many (see mikey74’s comment re. football).

I think we have a generation of multi channel tv addicted time poor adults who don’t take part in activities,

FIFY

I think part of it is due to housing costs (rent and/or mortgage) eating up so much more of our incomes these days and unless you are a fitness fanatic, spending £30+pcm on the local sports centre or gym is one of the first things to be sacrificed.

Then there are many cyclists terrified of using their bikes on the roads for “free fitness” because of the increasing number of accidents with motor vehicles, which sadly all too often give feeble if any real punishment to bad drivers (when they are the cause, rather than bad judgement by the cyclist) who injure, cripple or even kill cyclists.

Should council owned sports centres be run as non-profit organisations, reducing the cost for the public to use them, on the basis that a healthier population will lessen demand on the NHS?

Should the laws and punishments for motor vehicles hitting cyclists be made far harsher?

Then there are many cyclists terrified of using their bikes on the roads for “free fitness” because of the increasing amount of scare mongering about number of accidents with motor vehicles,

I agree with you about the problem with driving standards and punishment, but I’d disagree with you about the rest. Any increase in the accident rate is at least partly due to greater numbers of cyclists on the road in recent years. Not all of whom are well trained and disciplined themselves.

And if folk on a cycling forum are not either getting tips, seeking advice, or helping train new riders themselves to give back to the sport, that says a lot about people’s attitudes being as big a hurdle to the Olympic legacy as any other issues discussed.

Maybe because you’re not looking in the right places? I have no idea about horse dancing because I have no connection with it, but I understand kayaking has had a resurgence of interest since 2012. Though of course kayak slalom got a big bit of infrastructure legacy off the back of that which has made a difference.

They don’t bother with basketball as we have no chance at gold, but it’s one of the most accessible sports and we have facilities nationwide. Instead, we’re ploughing millions into inaccessible sports with easy medals.

I think it was done earlier, but we’re ploughing millions at the top level into sports where we have a chance of medals, whatever that sport might be. It doesn’t seem all that unreasonable not to provide lots of funding at the elite end to sports which aren’t going to provide that success, and that certainly doesn’t mean that funding has been cut at grassroots level, the two aren’t necessarily connected. Elite sports grants also tend to be ringfenced.