Women's Sport Takes Centre Stage Over The Weekend

Taking full advantage of a lull in the men’s sporting calendar, women’s sport was front, centre and everywhere else over the weekend dominating the media and showcasing some of the best UK female talent.

The Women’s Ashes led the way with a brilliant Test Match, the result not withstanding. It was a great game, closely fought, highlighted Sophie Ecclestone as comfortably the best spinner in the English game of either sex - showing shows what Ben Stokes will be missing at Lords later this week. The Test Match was also notable for the record breaking double century from the mercurial Tammy Beaumont who once again showed what Team England missed at last summer’s Commonwealth Games.

This sets up the rest of the series to be as equally compelling, exciting and competitive as their male counterparts and it is going to be a great Summer of cricket.

Saturday saw the climax of a superb Allianz Premier 15s competition with the hosts Gloucester-Hartpury beating Exeter in a brutally intense final in front of a 10,000 crowd at the magnificently renamed Queensholme.

The Women’s PGA in New Jersey attracted plenty of media attention although that coverage did wane a bit as the English challenge faded after the halfway point but the event did feature a personal best and podium finish for Northern Ireland’s Stephanie Meadow.

Speaking of podiums, the top step was once again graced by double Olympic Gold winning Jade Jones, taking the 57kg Taekwondo title at the European Games in Poland. She was joined (not on the same podium) by Penny Healey, Jess Sagoo and Bryony Pitman who won the Women’s Recurve over the weekend. Pitman, notably, became the first Team GB athlete to defend a title at the European Games.

Hollie Doyle proved that she is a match for Ryan Moore, Frankie Dettori et al by riding 3 winners at Royal Ascot culminating in a tactically brilliant job on St Lawrence in the Wokingham on Saturday. The previous day, the filly Tahiyra put up a very compelling case to say that she is the best 3y old in training this season.

To cap a great weekend for UK women’s sport, Beth Shriever won gold at the UCI BMX Racing World Cup in the Netherlands.

Slightly off topic from a UK perspective, but if you haven’t seen the highlights, I would strongly recommend you have a look at last week’s Women’s State of Origin Rugby League game won narrowly by NSW. The quality on show was utterly exceptional and unfortunately shows, like the male equivalent, we have a long way to go to attain the standards being set down under in Rugby League

The media coverage across all platforms was really good over the weekend and the news that the European Broadcast Union had finally concluded a deal with FIFA to cover the forthcoming Women’s World Cup was excellent and a relief. The tournament will be split between BBC and ITV and both broadcasters need to now pull their finger out and start promoting their coverage of the event, which starts in 3 weeks, very heavily – more on the deal and its implications in a future article.

Also excellent news in broadcast media is that Netflix has today launched Game On – “The Unstoppable Rise of Women’s Sport”. This is outstanding and a must watch.

Finally sticking with the subject of a “must watch”, ?and self indulgently going off topic again,?the other major media event of the weekend was, of course, Glastonbury. Amongst many brilliant sets, was one by the legend, Chrissie Hynde and her band The Pretenders. ?A pioneer of a female singer, song writing, guitar playing talent from the punk era, she, like many of today’s female athletes, inspired subsequent generations and showed what can be done with talent and perseverance.

Check out her set on the BBC I player but here is a reminder of her genius with Brass in Pocket from 1979 - Pretenders - Brass In Pocket (Official Music Video) - YouTube

So all in all, a very good weekend for Women’s sport in the UK. This is progress but the momentum must be maintained and the media must continue to give the sports, the events and the athletes, the air time and prominence they deserve throughout the year.

After all, there is no shortage of brilliant opportunity over the summer with Wimbledon, World Para Athletics Championship, World Swimming Championships, Women’s World Cup, Netball World Cup, Women’s British Open, the World Athletics Championship and the Solheim Cup all coming up over the next 3 months – over you the media.

Kirsty Maxey Francesca Kelly Duncan Truswell Martin Reynolds Tammy Parlour MBE Mark England OBE John Postlethwaite Steve Copestake