Women’s sport can have huge benefits off the field, too

It has been a pivotal year for women’s sport.The global sporting calendar has been dominated by female events including the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Netball World Cup and The Women’s Ashes, while Scotland’s Catriona Matthew led the European side to victory at the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles.

Of course, women’s sport is not new but in 2019 it made a definite shift into the mainstream. More than a billion people tuned in to watch the Women’s World Cup and 90,000 turned up to watch the Solheim Cup – making it the highest attended women’s golf event ever held in the UK.

The media played a big part, too, with the BBC broadcasting World Cup matches and highlights from the Solheim as part of its #changethegame women’s summer of sport campaign.

For veteran sports presenter Clare Balding it’s been a long time coming.

But Clare, who hosts the Sports Personality Of The Year Awards in Aberdeen next month, believes the increased profile of women’s sport can have a huge impact off the field, too.

She tells us (on pages 6 and 7): “It shows them being knocked down and getting back up again, celebrating or commiserating together. Those are important visual images for kids to see.”

I couldn’t agree more. Amid a glut of vacuous social media or reality TV stars, strong female role models are in short supply.

Seeing these ambitious, confident sporting heroes in action does so much to tackle stereotypes.

We’re not quite there yet, but with women like them at the helm, I reckon we’re playing a pretty decent long game.