It’s true that we’re in a very exciting time for the UK’s women in sport. We’ve had some amazing successes, from Laura Trott’s four gold medals at the Olympics, to the women in Team GB at the Paralympics winning nearly twice as many medals as the men, as well as seeing 17 million women across the UK getting up and more active through the amazing This Girl Can campaign.

We’ve seen a surge of 48% in people watching women’s football, it’s also seen England’s rugby team become World Champions and its cricket team rank second in the world. In the athletic world, UK women are killing it in every corner. But that does not mean that organisations like Women In Sport aren’t still necessary.

While our successes need to be shouted about and the future of female sport looks bright, the numbers show us where we really are. In the last year, only five per cent of national sports coverage was female, with only one per cent of overall sponsorship money going to female athletes. The amount of women sat on the boards of National Governing Bodies supported by Sport England while increasing, is still only between 21 per cent to 30 per cent.

We now know the importance of sport for all areas of life. Being involved with sport not only helps you physically, it also provides you with teamwork skills, self-belief and confidence. It’s not a coincidence that 48 per cent of the leading women in business take part in sports, as opposed to only 40 per cent of the average population.

Sport teaches women and girls to be strong, competitive and skilled in healthy conflict, sport provides us with so many important life lessons that aren’t available to us in a classroom or an office, its crucial.

“We need this week to be the rule and not the exception”

Media outlets need to commit to improving their commentary on women’s sport, not only on the achievements, but on participation and prospects. Let’s allow the UK’s women to be brought up seeing sport the same way as its men, with the same sense of ownership and the same sense of opportunity.

For this week, women’s sport has been filling columns and sport pages and taking up the time of our most powerful sport executives, but next week it will go back to how it was before.

We need this week to be the rule and not the exception. People and brands need to be braver and more daring when it comes to sponsorship, to be the ones to believe that women’s content, partnership and competition is important and worthy of its own space.

Women’s Sport Week reminds us of how incredible women’s sport is, while highlighting that it still needs a lot of support and change to get to where it needs to be. It’s time to turn words into action and starts making changes. Women In Sport Week shows us that it’s possible.

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