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P OLICY
Morgan Lake is one of the athletics stars representing England at this year’s Commonwealth Games
Ahead of Birmingham 2022, SportsNation looks at the way England Athletics
and the other home nation NGBs are growing the sport across the country
Growing the game
ATHLETICS
The number of people taking part in athletics activities in the UK is notoriously difficult to measure accurately. In its regular Active Lives reports, for example, Sport
England groups running and multi-sport activities together with athletics – which means that someone going for a run from home will be counted in the same figure as a discus thrower at an athletics club.
The five national governing bodies, responsible for athletics in the UK – UK Athletics, England Athletics, Scottish Athletics, Athletics
Northern Ireland and Welsh Athletics – do, however, keep figures of their own too.
“The number of people running regularly increased considerably prior to the pandemic,” England Athletics says. “For example, the number of England Athletics-registered athletes and runners increased by more than 100% to over 185,000 in the decade up to 2019 – but unfortunately the same could not be said for the number of people taking part in track and field.”
As with all other sports, the pandemic has muddied the waters when it comes assessing athletics participation data for the past two years. Therefore, it is perhaps more revealing to cast an eye to pre-pandemic numbers. Unfortunately, those show a downward
trend in the number of people taking part in athletics – especially when it comes to people involved in official competitions.
“While the performance standards across a number of events continue to impress, the overall number of participants was falling prior to the pandemic. For example, 43 per cent of athletes aged between 13 and 19 who competed in 2016 did not go on to compete the following year,” England Athletics says.
A TRIO OF PRIORITIES
Detailed plans to reverse the trend and to increase participation in athletics in the UK were defined in November 2020, when the four
There are now more than 330 full-size, 400m running tracks in the UK
46 SPORTSNATION.ORG.UK MAR/APR 2022
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