SCOTLAND was afforded the honour of being the first team into the arena at yesterday’s opening of the Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast, and watching Eilidh Doyle carry the flag for Scotland – the first woman to do so – was a proud moment indeed.
There are high hopes for Team Scotland, which has sent its biggest squad ever, some 224 athletes, to this great festival of sport and culture, and over the next 12 days the nation will get behind these talented sportsmen and women, living the agony and the ecstasy alongside them, marvelling at their sacrifices and achievements, feeling a rush of pride when they – hopefully – win the medals they have trained so hard for.
We did all this four years ago too, of course, when Glasgow hosted the Games on home soil and the city threw the biggest party anyone can remember. Sadly, what most of us didn’t do was use what we saw on the field, or in the pool or velodrome, as a springboard to get involved in sport ourselves.
One of the reasons Glasgow was awarded the Games in the first place was the convincing case made in the bid for a sporting legacy that would make this nation of overweight couch potatoes more active. But according to a new report examining the legacy of Glasgow 2014 there has been no rise at all in sporting participation among Glaswegians or Scots, no sign of the “step change” in physical activity Games organisers, ministers and health professionals hoped for.
The report, compiled by Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government, concluded that the venues created for the Games, such as Tollcross pool, continue to be popular. But increasing sporting participation among we woefully sedentary Scots - especially young people - was always the big aspiration, and the failure to achieve this legacy must be scrutinised.
After all, if holding a major sporting event in your city or country, investing millions in venues, can’t inspire folk to get off the sofa, what can?
No easy solutions spring to mind. But since Scotland’s obesity problem has reached such epidemic proportions, since our unhealthy lifestyle is both killing us prematurely and simultaneously costing society a fortune, we must continue to search for answers.
We could perhaps look to Australia for inspiration, a country with facilities for all that prides itself on its sport-obsessed reputation. Anyone who has visited Australia or has relatives there will marvel at the way in which sporting activity is integrated into daily life for citizens of all ages, rather than being remote or elite, or simply something to watch on TV, as it is so often viewed in Scotland.
Glasgow has some excellent facilities and opportunities for people of all income levels and backgrounds, from its network of gyms and swimming pools, to the indoor tennis centres and velodrome, all of which it maintains despite cuts to council funding. And yet relatively few Glaswegians bother to use them.
Scotland also has some of the most tenacious sporting ambassadors a nation could hope for in the likes of Judy Murray, who runs a raft of grassroots initiatives. But, as the hostile reaction to her plan for a tennis centre near Dunblane recently highlighted, Scots are too often lacking in ambition even when others are prepared to do all the hard work. Ms Murray’s plan was eventually given the green light by ministers after a tortuous process.
What’s clear is that Scots need to be sold sport in a different, more all-encompassing way that makes physical activity an integral part of life from early childhood, through school, college, work and beyond. Changing our mindset will be difficult and probably very expensive. Not changing is already proving far more costly, however.
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