Sports participation on the increase as London Games approach

The latest data on sports participation in the Active People Survey shows that for the first time more than 15 million people in England are playing sport once a week, every week.

The Active People Survey is Sport England’s main participation measure and is based on the percentage of adults (aged 16+) participating in at least 30 minutes of sport at moderate intensity at least once a week.

The latest figures show that 15.28 million people are playing sport at least once a week, 500,000 more than six months ago and 1.3 million more than in 2005/6 when London won the Olympic bid.

Twenty-one sports have shown a positive trend over the past six months, with particularly strong growth in the Olympic sports of cycling, football, athletics and hockey.

The results also show encouraging signs of recovery among a number of sports where participation had fallen in recent years. This includes sports such as such as rugby league, rugby union and golf which have had their funding reduced by Sport England, but have now made significant changes in their participation strategies.

For more information and detailed results visit the Sport England website.