Top female players in bid to boost profile of sportswomen after BBC’s all-male Sports Personality of the Year award shortlistA collection of leading British sportswomen has called for the “abysmal” media coverage of women’s sports to be addressed after the uproar over the male-only shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.Speaking at the launch of an event aimed at boosting the profile of women in sport, the 11-age Paralympic champion Tanni Grey-Thompson said: “We have a huge number of house Olympic and Paralympic medallists who are women. However the media coverage is abysmal, the funding is abysmal and not enough girls are getting involved.”She said that far more needed to be done, adding: “It’s a really positive body to admit that we haven’t cracked the women in sports issue.”At the end month, the BBC’s failure to comprehend any women on its shortlist for the award provoked criticism from a collection of MPs who accused it of “ignoring women’s achievements”.More than a dozen female athletes met MPs in parliament on Wednesday to promote Us Girls – a lottery-funded programme which aims to give young women from disadvantaged areas sporting opportunities and the chance to meet female sports stars.Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, said that young women needed more role models.”In the runup to the Olympics the number of women doing sport is falling,” she said. “This is a absolute concern. Sport affects your fitness, health and how you feel about yourself.”Tracey Crouch, the Conservative MP for Chatham and Aylesford – and an FA-qualified coach who manages her community girls’ football team – will on Thursday inquiry David Cameron how he plans to promote women’s sports. “It’s about boosting women’s profiles since that’s the cause the shortlist failed,” she said.Figures released at the end week by Sport England, which aims to get more human beings involved in sport, exhibit the number of women participating in sport at least three times a week has decreased over the past year, while male participation has increased.Jennie Value, Sport England’s chief executive, said more thought needed to be given to how sport was reported in the media. “Sport is seen through a male lens and coverage is given to mainstream male sports like football,” she said. “However these aren’t always the ones that women are interested in.”The England and Fantastic Britain international hockey player Beth Storry said: “It’s certainly not an much playing field when it comes to publicity. Women in the US receive so much more coverage. We demand to get more girls involved. Playing has changed my lifetime and given me such confidence.”Her sentiments were echoed by Kylie Grimes, a Fantastic Britain wheelchair rugby athlete. “There’s lots of girls outside there who desire to get involved however are intimidated or reckon its not for them,” she said. “A abundance rests on the profile of sports being played [and] hopefully the Olympics will improve this.”Katie-Jemima Yeats-Brown, a 16-year-ancient Olympic judo hopeful from Tonbridge, said the BBC controversy had served only to strengthen her resolve: “I was disappointed by the shortlist, however it just motivates me much more since immediately I have something to prove.”BBC Sports Personality of the YearWomenRebecca Ratcliffeguardian.co.uk © 2011 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
DOWNLOAD: Barbara Walters