London 2012 Sports Legacy Still Boosting Numbers Despite Latest Participation Drop-off

London 2012 is still boosting participation in grassroots sport according to the latest Sport England Active People survey but that there has been a significant drop-off in the last six months.

The findings for the six months to April are that 15.3m people are still playing sport once a week, every week – 1.4m more than 2005 when London won the vote to host the Olympic games.

However, that it is in contrast to when the first figures since the Games were released six months ago.

Then, 750,000 more people were playing sport each week than the year before – but that ‘Olympic factor’ appears to be fading with 220,000 fewer now playing sport every week.

That indicates that there was a big ‘spike’ in participation but that has now started to subside – although there are still half a million more people playing sport every week than there were a year ago.

In the report, Sport England point out that the unusually cold and long Winter – it was the coldest March for 50 years – may have had an adverse effect on the figures.

They stress that 71 per cent of the post-Olympic surge has been retained despite the weather and also that 3.86m 16 to 25-year-olds are playing sport regularly – an increase of 63,000 in the last year.