The 2012 London Olympics did not make more Londoners play sport

By Mike Pollitt
30 July 2013, 10:06

The Evening Standard just did a “one year on from the 2012 London Olympics” opinion poll. This produced a pretty positive news story and accompanying editorial which you’d have to say is fair enough. One of their headlines, however, did make me wonder. It ran:

83% think Games made more people play sport

It’s nice that 83% of people think the Olympics encouraged more people to play sport.

What would be nicer if is the the Olympics had actually encouraged more people to play sport. Can we find this out?

Happily, the latest figures on sport participation came out last month (Jun ’13). The London news?

“The proportion of adults in London participating in at least one session of sport each week has decreased from 36.5% in 2011/12 to 36% in 2012/13”.

Similar picture nationwide.

Gah.