Our Sporting Lives

With the Rio Olympics under way this month, Christina Quaine speaks to three women who are a driving force in British sport.

TRACEY CROUCH, 41, is Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage, and MP for Chatham and Aylesford. She forged her political career as a researcher in the House of Commons. Tracey lives in Kent with her partner, radio presenter Steve Ladner, and their six-month-old son, Freddie.

What is your role?

It’s up to me to make sure we get as many people participating in sport as possible – playing it, being physically active, coaching, volunteering or being a spectator. It’s my driving passion to get more people involved in sport at different levels.

Is sport really for everyone?

Yes, and I’m especially interested in encouraging isolated groups into sport. For example, there’s a great project called ASA Dementia Friendly Swimming, which helps people with dementia to continue swimming by using dementia-trained lifeguards.

Why are fewer women and girls involved in sport?

Sport can do incredible things for women and girls, but too often we’re pushed to the sidelines. When I was a girl I was told that I shouldn’t play football. That getting muddy and sweaty isn’t “ladylike”. And we find when we challenge these stereotypes, when we compete at the highest level, our achievements are all too often ignored or belittled. There is an increase in the number of women engaging in sport but there’s still a gender gap, with 1.6 million more men than women playing sport.

What about people who aren’t interested in competitive sport?

We have to offer more choices. Not every woman wants to play a competitive sport, but they’re not necessarily being encouraged into other areas of physicalactivity, such as Zumba, trampolining or parkrun UK. These are areas we want to see grow through investing more public money.