Girls in Sports

The first Worldchampion gold medal I won was on International Women´s Day 2005. But I only had the chance to win this because, at some point, Women started to do Biathlon...

After the Olympics in 1988, it even became part of the Winter Olympics. This was only possible because at some point women decided to do Biathlon, and girls followed. Quickly, the sport became more and more attractive and with that, more competitive, which made it very exciting.

The same happens now with Women's Ski jumping, and there is already a new generation waiting to compete on the Olympic level. 

It is great to have girls in sports, and the more girls stay, the better it is for everyone. It creates a competitive field and fun races, games, and competitions to watch.

In my article Without support - No Success, I already said that the dropout rate for especially young girls is much higher, and they seem to have different challenges than boys.

I would like to see this changing because girls in sports are great for many reasons. A simple one is that it is just way more exciting being in a very competitive race, where athletes' abilities are very similar. Then you can only bet who might win the race and don´t know for sure who will end up being first. It's also much more fun being in a race like that than competing and knowing who will succeed before the competition starts. To create more of this excitement, I would like to see lots of girls competing on a high level in lots of sports.

I was researching why girls drop out or do not even get interested in sports, to begin with. I believe when we are aware of those reasons, it is easier to face and overcome them. I picked the following seven:

1. Awareness of sports: When I first read this, it took me a second, but then it hit me, and I was not so surprised. I am a little biased here as a European, but in Europe, you have all sorts of sports in your face all the time. You could (not that I would recommend that) get in front of the TV on a Saturday at 9 am, not leave until 9 pm, and without switching channels, you have seen at least eight different sports. There might be some advertisements, but they would not play it much while a race is in progress. Kids definitely get aware of and maybe interested in all kinds of sports. In the USA, I feel it´s 80% about the Olympics, which happens every four years. But this might be only 5% of the whole picture.
2. Availability: Yes, not everywhere everything is possible, but sometimes this doesn´t need to be a bad thing. If there is one fun option, it might be all it needs. If there is no option at all, that's a problem. But fewer options make it easier to choose from, and FOMO doesn't have a chance to come up.
   
3. Lack of time: Every kid should have time to play, and sports are a fun, educational, effective, and hopefully safe place to play.
   
4. Low confidence: Those kids especially should consider and be encouraged to do sports. It might be best to let them be quiet in the back and go with the flow. But where else can you create faster and better confidence than in sports? Of course, it is important to let all the kids know that they are here to learn, experience, and grow and then see where this is going. If it's all about winning all the time, it's not a very confident building environment.
   
5. Negative body image: Also, in this case, I find sports very good to learn to feel the body, what a body can do, what it can not do, how it can get stronger, and getting a unit with the body. It is not an easy one, but I still believe sport can help with that.
   
6. Perceived lack of skill: Is this not calling for sport! Sport is going to teach that skills can be learned and improved. For some, it might take longer than for others, but everyone usually gets better by doing. It is important to express that there are levels of skills and that the coach is pointing out individual improvement.
   
7. Feeling unwelcome: This breaks my heart if there is a reason to feel unwelcome. There are athletes, who create a situation that they are not as welcome in a group, but in general, everyone who gets started needs to get fair chances and needs to be welcome. Every coach must create this kind of atmosphere.
   

I know that it might not be as easy to overcome some of those obstacles, but I´m also here to look for solutions instead of emphasizing the problems. To see the issue is the first important step, to do something the next necessary one. Something like creating a fun, respectful environment girls want to be part of and accept and emphasize the needs of every kid in the group, not just the ones on the podium most of the time.

Sports are great at any level, educational for health and life. I hope many girls find their way into sports and stick with it. If they are leaving at some point again, I don't want them to do that because of bad feelings.

Do You Have a Dream? Let´s Take the Next Step!