THE cream of Scotland’s female sporting heroes were honoured at a national equality charity awards ceremony, where eight outstanding sportswomen were chosen from an elite line-up of athletes, coaches and staff.
The accolades were handed out at the Scottish Women in Sport (SWiS) gala awards, held in association with energy firm SSE, in Glasgow last night. National youth squad hockey manager Susan McDowall was named SSE People’s Champion by the public for her tireless work with Scotland’s under-18 hockey team.
McDowall, from Stevenston, North Ayrshire, has held the post for three years and the team were runners-up at the Sainsbury’s School Games in Manchester. They attended training camps in Ireland and Barcelona, as well as numerous training weekends, and achieved fourth place at the European Championships II in Glasgow in July.
The Oriam Sportswoman of the Year Award went to Olympic champion track cyclist Katie Archibald. The Glasgow athlete took gold in Rio in the women’s team pursuit to add to her impressive tally of British, European and world titles. The award is sponsored by Oriam, Scotland’s state-of-the-art sports performance centre. SWiS founder and CEO
Maureen McGonigle said: “It is with great pleasure that once again we celebrate the success of our women in sport and those who work tirelessly in the background to support them.
“From the Rio Olympics to the qualification of the Scottish women’s football team, women in sport are achieving at the highest level and deserve recognition for their efforts.
“SWiS works tirelessly to bring about a culture change for sport. However, recent figures are disappointing, showing that only seven per cent of all sports media coverage in the UK is for women in sport and just 0.4 per cent of sponsorship is directed at women in sport.
“We are keen to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that equality in sport remains a priority and look forward to the launch of the sporting equality fund which will identify and target key areas for change.”
The Title IX Role Model award was presented to wheelchair racer Samantha Kinghorn. The 20-year-old from Gordon, Berwickshire, is the fastest female British wheelchair racer regardless of classification over 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m.
Aileen Campbell, Minister for Public Health and Sport, said: “The year 2016 has brought great success for women’s sport in Scotland. Our elite athletes have once again excelled, with memorable performances in Rio as part of Team GB and Para GB and our women’s football team qualifying for Euro 2017.
“I am delighted to support the 2016 Scottish Women in Sport annual dinner. This event is both a celebration of our achievements on the world stage, and a recognition of the many people who work to ensure women and girls are not left behind when it comes to taking part in sport and physical activity. The Scottish
Government’s £300,000 sporting equality fund, announced earlier this year, will build on this success to drive participation, engagement and promotion of women in sport.”
TENNIS Scotland performance manager Karen Ross clinched the McCrea Financial Services Coach of the Year award, presented by fellow coach Judy Murray, whose son Andy is currently world men’s singles
No 1, while his brother Jamie topped the doubles rankings earlier this year.
SWiS supporter Murray said: “There’s a real groundswell behind women in sport just now and events like this are really important for keeping it in the spotlight and for celebrating success, commitment, contribution and perseverance.
“There are so many women doing extraordinary things in sport and yet they go largely unnoticed. We have to get better at promoting and praising and we must all stick together because together we can make great things happen.”
Parasport sprinter Maria Lyle, a Rio Paralympic silver medallist and European record holder won sportscotland Young Sportswoman of the Year. Sarah Wilson, the only female hockey umpire and one of youngest ever at Rio was named Official of the Year, an award sponsored by The National.
Newcomer of the Year, sponsored by Partick Thistle, went to Abby Kane, parasport swimmer and Rio Paralympic silver medallist.
SWiS Best Team Performance was awarded to the Scottish senior women’s football team, who qualified for next year’s European Championship.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here