Trott 'clinches' gold but Kenny 'claims' it

As the sun sets on Rio 2016, new research from Cambridge University Press indicates that the gender equality gap in the reporting of sport is beginning to narrow. Examining millions of words from news and social media commentary around the 2016 Olympic Games, researchers found that men’s sports received just twenty per cent more air time than women’s during the Rio Games – a considerable stride towards striking a balance in the reporting of men’s and women’s sport.

The gender-neutral term ‘sportsperson’ was also used with a considerably higher frequency during the Olympics in comparison to the language of sports more generally*. We’ve also seen athletes themselves making strides towards generating fairer sports reporting, with Andy Murray deftly correcting John Inverdale’s inaccurate reporting of his gold medals success surpassing his female counterparts.

The study also highlighted an association between the words ‘female’ and ‘first’ suggesting that Rio 2016 was an Olympics of firsts for many female athletes, including Taekwondo fighter Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin who made history by becoming the first Iranian woman to ever win an Olympic medal. US Skeet shooter Kim Rhode became the first female athlete to win an individual medal in six straight summer Olympic Games.

The strides being made by these female athletes and others around the world is probably best surmised by the achievements of the women of the US Olympic Team who won 27 of the 46 American golds (securing eight more medals in total than their male counterparts).

Closer to home, it was a series of firsts for the women of Team GB, as Bryony Page won a silver in the trampoline, Britain's first medal in the event, while the women's hockey team won their first ever Olympic gold medal. Of Team GB’s 130 medal-winning athletes returning from Rio, 59 female athletes have arrived home with medals proudly draped around their necks. 

Delving deeper into the corpus, the manner in which these victories are reported in the media highlights a notable difference as men are more likely to ‘claim’ their medals, suggesting a bold sense of entitlement. On the other hand, women are most likely to ‘clinch’ their titles, suggesting a fight for glory, sometimes even positioned as the result of the male coaches and partners as in the case of Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu.

Exploring further it appears that the sporting action didn’t always take centre stage. The research also revealed that the word ‘green’, was commonly associated with the words 'colour', 'water' and 'pool' in Olympic reporting, relating to the mystical transformation of the alluring crystal blue diving pool to a murky green colour overnight.

While this mishap has emerged as one of the most reported stories of Brazil’s hosting experience, the more positive and less bewildering term ‘carnival’ also ranked highly - a clear indication for the South American nation that their famous atmosphere and spirit was a key contributor to the success of the games and positive perception on the world stage. 

Claire Dembry, Language Researcher at Cambridge University Press, said: “We analysed a huge breadth of sources, putting us in a unique position to comment on the most significant words from Rio 2016 – whether this be the change in colour of the diving pool or seemingly sexist approach that still permeates this global spectacle. Overall, it is reassuring to see how the Olympics as a movement can help to encourage further equality in sport. However, it’s disappointing to see that this supports the findings from our study ahead of the Olympics (about gender-equality in the wider language of sport) that women still tend to be associated with aesthetics and men with sporting ability.”

- Ends -

For further information please contact:

Siobhán Meehan/Sam Faulkner

020 7632 4800

siobhan.meehan@threepipe.co.uk / sam.faulkner@threepipe.co.uk  

For interview requests:

Cambridge University Press is able to put forward academic professionals for interview requests.

Please contact Threepipe using the details above in the first instance.

Notes to editors:

About the study

Using the Cambridge English Corpus (CEC) and its sub-sections the Sports and Olympics Corpuses, multi-billion word databases of written and spoken English language from a huge range of media sources, experts at Cambridge University Press have analysed millions of words relating to men and women in language associated with the Olympic sports, during Rio 2016.

*In the CEC the term ‘sportsman’ appears over 20 times more frequently than ‘sportswoman’ or the gender neutral ‘sportsperson’. In the Olympic Corpus, ‘sportsperson’ is referred to only 30 per cent less than ‘sportsman’. 

About the Cambridge English Corpus 

The Cambridge English Corpus is a multi-billion word collection of written and spoken English. It includes the Cambridge Learner Corpus, a unique bank of exam candidate papers. Our authors study the Corpus to see how English is really used, and to identify typical learner mistakes. This means that Cambridge materials help students to avoid mistakes, and you can be confident the language taught is useful, natural and fully up-to-date.

Cambridge learner’s dictionaries, grammar and vocabulary training materials and examination, business and general English course books have all benefited from the information in the Cambridge English Corpus. We no longer have to rely on intuition to know what people say or write; instead, we can see how English is actually used by a huge variety of different speakers. So, materials developed with our Corpus are more authentic and can illustrate language as it is really used. 

About Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Dedicated to excellence, its purpose is to further the University’s objective of advancing knowledge, education, learning and research. Its extensive peer-reviewed publishing lists comprise 45,000 titles covering academic research, professional development, more than 350 research journals, school-level education, English language teaching and bible publishing. Playing a leading role in today’s international market place, Cambridge University Press has more than 50 offices around the globe, and it distributes its products to nearly every country in the world.