Messers Wiggins and Hoy are two good reasons why Manchester should stay the home for British Cycling
There has been a lot of general discussion about the legacy of the Olympics. The PM has appointed Seb Coe to head up the legacy program, and I have argued that British cycling should stay based in Manchester after 2014.
Yesterday, Sport England published its annual Active People Results. Here we can see a true legacy of the Games.
Their figures show that record numbers of women and men in England are playing sport every week.
- 15.5 million people aged 16 and over are playing sport at least once a week. That’s 750,000 more than a year ago and 1.57 million more than when London won the Olympic and Paralympic bid.
- The strongest growth has been among women, with an increase of more than half a million in the past year helping to cut the gender gap in sport.
- The number of people taking part has risen sharply in the period since the London 2012 Games got underway, with strong increases in Olympic sports such as cycling and sailing.
- Participation by disabled people has been rising steadily since 2005, but still lags far behind that for non-disabled people. Sport England this week announced a £10.2 million National Lottery investment to tackle this challenge.
Full details of the participation results, including a sport by sport breakdown can be found here.
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