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Cyclists. Don’t be d*cks. (and no, I don’t mean ducks)

/ Kate O'C / 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago cyclist Charlie Alliston was charged with “wanton and furious driving” after hitting and killing a pedestrian who stepped out in front of him whilst he was riding a bike with no front break. The whole situation was enormously unfortunate; he should absolutely have had two breaks on his bike (it’s the law!), but to be killed by a bike travelling at 14mph is statistically very unlikely (this article in The Guardian does the maths), so Kim Briggs was extraordinarily unlucky.

Now, the whys and wherefores of this story have been hotly debated in the bear pits of online tabloid comments sections for weeks, so I have no intention of trying to single-handedly put the issue to bed or trivialising what is a thoroughly tragic event. But I do think we should acknowledge that this has done nothing to help the image of cyclists in the eyes of the media, motorists of pedestrians. It’s important that they know, notwithstanding Alliston’s questionable behaviour and words, we are not all terrible people.

So, in an effort to curb the ever growing us-vs-them mindset, these are my rules of thumb, from one cyclist to others, so we don’t come across as total c**ckwombles.

  1. Make sure your breaks work / actually have breaks

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International Women’s Day – a #womeninsport wrap up

/ katieferg89 / 1 Comment

As International Women’s Day draws to a close, I thought I would share some of the headlines specifically around women in sport that have caught my eye over the past few weeks. I had hopes of writing a clever, opinionated article, but truth be told, I was poorly prepared and ran out of time, so thought that this was a suitable alternative!

I’d love to know some of your thoughts on these articles –  I’m still not sure on my thoughts on a lot of them, particularly around gender quotas in management so apologies if my arguments aren’t always as structured as they could be…but hopefully you’ll enjoy a read! 

FA, RFU and ECB risk cuts after Women in Sport reveals lack of boardroom diversity

Ah, the quota argument. I still don’t know what I think about quotas, preferring to be there on merit rather than because of my gender ticking a box. But maybe that’s something that we have to suck up and deal with for a while to make it the new normal. We shouldn’t have to, and we shouldn’t have to use funding as a punishment – especially when those most likely to get their funding cut don’t really need the additional funding in the first place…

It also brings the question of representation matching that seen in the sport in general – should we now be getting a quota into female-dominated sports such as netball to get more men in its management? The Women In Sport board (they produced this report) is 100% female…how long until we have people clamouring that this shouldn’t be the case.

However, the more and more women we see in sport, the more we are exposed to it as the new norm – giving young girls and those early in their careers aspiration that gender shouldn’t be a barrier to getting the job they want.

#thisgirlcan? I much prefer #thiswomandoes

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