Meeting of the Parliament 04 October 2018
I am delighted to have this opportunity to open this girls and women in sport debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. We will support the Scottish Government motion, of course, because it contains laudable aims. We will also support the Labour amendment.
I was thinking about how to address how women’s sport has developed over the years, and the name of Maricica Puica came into my mind—as I am sure it came into everyone else’s. I will be more than impressed if some members know who I was talking about. If I mentioned Zola Budd and Mary Decker Slaney, more members would probably recognise the race that I am talking about. In that race, as the two of them clashed, Maricica Puica won the Olympic 3,000m title.
Why do I mention that? In the 1984 Olympic games, the 3,000m was the longest race in which women were allowed to participate on the track. That is not so long ago. They did not have the 5,000m, the 10,000m, the 20km walk or the 50km walk. They did not have the pole vault, the triple jump or the hammer. On where we are now, we nearly have parity in the Olympic games. The only event that is still missing is the 50km walk. I should also mention that Wendy Sly won the silver in that 3,000m race. She is a good friend of mine.
For me, it is interesting that in Scottish athletics terms—I will unashamedly talk about athletics—the women dominate. Laura Muir and Eilish McColgan have already been mentioned by the minister, but we also have to talk about Eilidh Doyle, who I think has now reached a record 18 major medals this year. There is also young Zoey Clark, who I have mentioned before, coming in behind Eilidh Doyle. Long may that continue.
I was at the national training squad day a couple of weeks ago, and there are a number of young athletes coming up behind them. Alison Johnstone and I had a conversation about this. One thing that struck me at that event was the small number of women coaches. At a national squad day, with all the athletes, I counted a grand total of one female coach. That is something of which we must take cognisance. If we are to consider how we might break down the barriers to bringing more girls and women into sport, we have to think about the coaches who will lead them in.
The minister and I attended a function on Tuesday. We listened to some young women talking about their experiences of how they got into sport. What kept coming back to me was that schoolteachers, parents and coaches are the people who influence our athletes. We need to start to consider parity not just in women taking part in sport, but in women being involved in coaching. That might help to break down barriers.
Something else that came out of that event was the continued talk about school. School is the place where many children get their first experiences of sport. I have long advocated that we should take sport and physical activity to our children, rather than waiting for them to come to sport. We have that opportunity in schools. School is an important environment, so we must enhance that.
We have to consider how we link school sport to extra-curricular activity and community activities. When I consider the school PE curriculum, I do not see the point of doing a six-week introductory course to a sport if there is no destination for that sport outside the school. If we are going to enthuse a child to participate in sport, we have to give them a destination. I would like to see, in the physical education programme, greater flexibility that takes cognisance of what is available around the school in order to further physical development and education.