The organization of the Olympic Games in London and the success of Britain's athletes at the Games have led to a considerable increase in sports participation in the country, after the continued decline that was registered last year. According to figures released by Sport England, the grass-roots funding body, the number of adults playing sports increased by 750,000 in the past year, bringing the total number to more than 15.5 million. Figures include English people aged 16 years and over who have been practising sport at least once a week for 30 minutes at moderate intensity. It does not include people from other parts of the U.K. The full-year results of the annual “Active People Survey,” in its sixth edition, were published on Dec. 6, based on data covering the period from mid-October 2011 to mid-October 2012.
When compared with Active People Survey 1, the very first survey reporting on the 2005-06 period, there were 1.6 million more adults engaged in sports activities.The strongest growth in participation in the past year was among women, with an increase of half a million. Participation by disabled people also grew, and has been rising steadily since 2005, although it remains far behind that for non-disabled people. To address this issue, Sport England recently announced that it will invest £10.2 million (€8.0m-$10.6m) of money from the National Lottery on more projects for disabled people.
Around two-thirds of the sports activities covered by the survey showed an increase in the past year, while the other third registered a decline. Cycling performed particularly well with almost 2 million people cycling once a week, representing an increase of 200,000 riders over the past year, favored by a summer of unprecedented successes in the sport. Sailing, another Olympic sport, also performed well during the period. Athletics, swimming, judo, hockey and netball were among the other sports that grew in popularity. In contrast, cricket suffered as a result of an extremely wet summer, and table tennis also showed a decline.
