Commonwealth Games to shine the spotlight on women

Women set for prime time as sport’s premier vehicle for progress rolls into Birmingham

In 2018 England Netball captain Ama Agbeze led her team to gold on the Gold Coast. Two million of us tuned in to see Helen Housby put the Roses over the Ozzies in the last throes of a dramatic final.

When Agbeze collected her gold, few could have guessed that participation in netball would spike almost instantly – by a whopping 131,000. The win solidified netball’s place as the most popular women’s sport in the UK, but it symbolised something bigger …

It showed what can happen when we see it. When we feel it.

Four years on and local girl Agbeze is a key figure within the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee. She’s one of the team presiding over the event, and vying to continue the Games’ positive impact in getting more people, especially women, into more sport.

Lifting the bar

The Commonwealth Games have come to represent progress in women’s sport, a vehicle for change, and the Gold Coast Games in 2018 hoisted the bar to new heights.

In Oz, there was gender parity in the number of medal events for the very first time, while at least 50% of officials in basketball, hockey and swimming were women.

Behind the scenes, an intensive Women’s Coaching Internship Programme made sure the world had 19 more high-grade female coaches at the end of the Games than it did before.

The Gold Coast should be a tough act to follow but Birmingham’s already on-track. The 2022 Games have more para-sports on the programme than any Commonwealths in history and, unlike other events, the para-sport programme is fully integrated.

Importantly, these Games will be the first time ever at a major multi-sport event that women’s medal events outnumber men’s medal events. Even better, scheduling has been specifically designed to keep female sport in the spotlight.

In the first of two Super Sundays, Commonwealth events are moulded around the final of the women’s 2022 European Football Championships. And on the second Super Sunday, a trio of women’s finals – in hockey, T-20 cricket and netball – will unfold on the same day, keeping female athletes firmly in prime time.

As Agbeze says: “It’s basically a whole day to celebrate women’s sport.”

The challenge

Birmingham looks set to raise the bar yet again, but those presiding over the Games’ legacy still have their work cut out.

As The Well HQ report time and again, almost two-thirds of girls today will bin off sport entirely by the time they’re through puberty. Just 32% of women take part in sport at least once a week (Sport England), compared with 41% of men, and an alarming 27% of women are inactive (Sport Scotland).

As triple medallist Dina Asher-Smith says, “if you don’t see it, you’re not aware that it’s there” and we need to see it there. Girls and women of all ages, with any aspirations, need to see it to believe it. To feel it.

Funding 4 Sport specifically call out the need for single sex sport and activities that are staffed by women and not running next to men’s sessions. So with the promise of more women’s medal events, female officials and dedicated broadcasting days (not just hours), Ama Agbeze and the Birmingham Committee have solid tools to ensure we can see it and feel it on home turf, and build out a legacy.

With the lack of role models and ‘female invisibility’ both cited as major barriers to women becoming involved in sport, the shift in emphasis towards women at Birmingham 2022 presents a great opportunity. Netball – we’ve already seen what can happen when people can see top level sporting success.

This Commonwealth Games will hopefully mark a new shift towards more and better quality coverage of women’s sport that will make it easier for the next generation of stars to see – and be inspired by.