Pippa Britton: The importance of inclusion across sport

Pippa Britton is Wales’s most successful Archer, a double Paralympian and double world champion. Pippa made the podium at six consecutive world championships and won 24 medals at 24 international events. 

Pippa also represented the Welsh able bodied archery team on more than 20 occasions and has broken many world and national records.  
 After retiring from competing, Pippa decided to give back to sport and society combining her understanding of diversity and equality with her experience of governance. She's had a number of prominent non-executive board roles, including the vice-chair of Sport Wales and UK anti-doping and the chair of Disability Sport Wales. 

We explore much in this conversation including the importance of diverse sports boards and what more needs to be done to improve the way we treat athletes at the end of their sporting careers.

A huge thank you to our partners, Sport England who are kindly supporting the next three series of The Game Changers podcast through the National Lottery.

Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.

Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers

Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media

A Fearless Women production

Transcript

Pippa Britton: The importance of inclusion across sport

Sue Anstiss:

Hello, and welcome to The Game Changers. I'm Sue Anstiss and this is the podcast where you'll hear from trailblazing women in sport. 

A huge thank you to our partners, Sport England, who are supporting The Game Changers podcast through the National Lottery. 

My guest today is Pippa Britton, Wales’s most successful Archer. A double Paralympian and double world champion Pippa made the podium at six consecutive world championships and won 24 medals at 24 international events. She also represented the Welsh able bodied archery team on more than 20 occasions and has broken many world and national records.  After retiring from competing,  Pippa decided to give back to sport and society combining her understanding of diversity and equality with her experience of governance. She's had a number of prominent non-executive board roles, including the vice-chair of Sport Wales and UK anti-doping and the chair of Disability Sport Wales. Pippa also uses her remarkable story to provide inspiration and support to others. 

Pippa, I know you're passionate about, the importance of diversity and inclusion in sport, but for those who are not yet fully on board, I wonder if we can start with you just sharing why you feel diversity is so important.

Pippa Britton:

It's interesting, isn't it? When we talk about diversity, it's about the experiences that people bring, particularly into sort of decision making. And everybody has a different experience of life, we all have a different upbringing. You know, it doesn't matter whether that's, because of the area that you live in or whether you have a disability or whether you are different ethnic background, a different religion. I always say to people about decision making people around the decision aking table, they need to think about who is going to be affected by the decisions that they make. And I can't imagine what it's like to be a marathon runner, for example, because I have a disability, but if I talk to a marathon runner, they can explain something of their experiences to me It's all about that understanding what other people are experiencing in their lives. And it isn't until we understand that, that we can make decisions that really help, when we are trying to make things change in the world. 

Sue Anstiss:

It does feel as if things are improving across sport, even in the last five to 10 years, especially with the code for sports governance. Is that what you've seen?

Pippa Britton:

Yes. I think genuine things have improved particularly within disability on, uh, there's been a, quite a change in people's attitudes to people with disability who are taking part in elite sport. Now that's a completely different thing from the challenges that everyday people are facing in their lives, but when it comes to elite sport, I think Beijing 2008 was probably one of the first times that not just Britain, but the world went, ‘oh, actually these aren't just disabled people who are having a little go at sport. These are athletes who are at the pinnacle of their career’ When London came along four years later, and lots of people asked me whether I think London 2012 changed attitudes towards disability. I think what happened in London, particularly in Britain, is that people really looked at the value of sports people, real athletes at the peak of their training, achieving amazing things.

And they just happen to have a disability. And that's, I think was a change in the world. There's also been a change internationally with the leadership of the international Paralympic committee. New president, I think brings the same approach to disability and sport combined. And so genuinely, I think that's where the shift has come. I believe although Rio was challenging games and Tokyo again are challenging games, still making mainstream headlines when somebody is actually winning a medal. And that would not have happened 10 years ago or, or 20 years ago. It would've still been a much more, patronizing approach to disability sport. 

Sue Anstiss:

You alluded to the fact that obviously that's at that elite level of those amazing super humans and we saw all that publicity. So how do we, and can we make that translation then for more broadly across society for disabled people from sport?

Pippa Britton:

Yeah. So that's, that's a real challenge, isn't it? you can then find in the general public there will be an assumption of if these particular group of people with disabilities can do it, why are this particular group of people not being included in society in the same way.  Is it just they’re not trying hard enough or, um, and there's been some more, disability hate crime as well. I think in more recent years. And, and some of that I think, is because there is a kind of, bit of a dichotomy, isn't it? You know, we've, we've got the ‘super humans’, but then there are a lot of people in all walks of life. It doesn't matter whether you have a disability or not, who are not out there being, you know, ultramarathon runners or being Olympic athletes just the same.

What we can learn from sport is that people, like myself get a bigger voice. and I'm able to say, do you know what it's like traveling on a train if you have to book a ramp 24 hours in advance?  Whereas I didn't have any public profile, it would be much more challenging for me to do that The other thing of course, is that when you're talking about people with disabilities, more generally in society, they don't necessarily get the same opportunities to work, play sport, uh, because of limited access.

And so that's some something we need to change and we need more people who've come from elite sport to be able to go into clubs and societies and say, you know, if I was starting out now, what I'd really like is somewhere that doesn't have steps or does have better access, that kind of thing, because we all know don't we with sport, you know, brings confidence and, uh, you know, can help us with leadership and teamwork and all sorts of things. And then we may find, actually there's a spillover isn't there into, can we get kids who are introduced into sport and into team working and leadership roles in sport, you know, by being the captain of the team or whatever it happens to be that will, they then feel they have better opportunities to be able to go out there and work for a living when they leave school and feel like they have more of a future. 

Sue Anstiss:

And can I take you back to your childhood in Wales? So you were born with spina bifida. How did that affect your day-to-day life growing up?

Pippa Britton:

I had very determined parents. My mother particularly was extremely determined that I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be left behind that I would try everything and,  one of the things that she got me to do very, very young was learn to swim.  I could swim before I could walk. In fact, my mother used to say that I would just throw myself into water whenever I saw it. And she just thought she ought to teach and get me to swim before I went and drowned myself somewhere. 

Sue Anstiss:

I heard a lovely story about you, and you and the dog and the buggy and the…

Pippa Britton

Yes, it's it' so at the beach with my, with my brother I wasn't walking, I was just about crawling and my parents thought they'd take,my brother into the, into the water. So they tied me to the push chair with a set of reins and they tied the dog to the push chair, very well behaved dog. And they said to the dog, you know, you stay there. And the next thing they found was me and the dog and the push chair in the water. And yeah, so at that point, my mother thought I ought to swim. I, I wanted to be a, a great swimmer when I was a kid. So as a small child, I had great ambitions to be, um, some kind of huge Olympic swimmer or something. But my, my parents really fought for me to go to a mainstream school.

I don't ever remember getting across the playground all in one go without falling over and I guess I, I felt growing up that I was quite left behind and left on my own. I was excluded from a lot of school sports, and I was kind of left on the sidelines I think I felt growing up. And I didn't turn out to be a champion swimmer because I only got to be four foot 10, and you really need to be about six foot to be a champion swimmer. So I, I think for me there was difficulties growing up and, and feeling that I didn't really feel part of, a childhood friendship group. I was quite badly bullied in primary school and, that had an impact. And so, um, it was very nice for me then when I became older and took up archery because archery was such an inclusive sport it's kind of any age, any disability, any ability that can have a go at, uh, pinging, bows and arrows, as they say. 

Sue Anstiss:

How did you find archery?

Pippa Britton:

It was actually after I'd got married I didn't really do anything very much apart from going to work. and I thought I'd like to take a sport. And I went along to a sport, ‘have a go’ day, and there's one of these things that's quite interesting again, if you're coming back to disability and inclusion, because I went along to this this day where you could pay 50 Pence and three golf balls or whatever. And I found for the most part that I just simply could not do the things that were on offer and there wasn't even, an alternative offer for somebody who was less able. I found myself restricted to trying air rifle and archery, and I just thought air rifle looked boring. So, so I ended up, I ended up trying archery.  I was very bad when I started, I think I spent six weeks of my beginner's course, mostly missing the target. but, uh, I enjoyed it enormously and, and stuck.

Sue Anstiss :

It's interesting. Isn't that you talked about that whole lack of inclusion within the school sports, and then also, you know, in sports and then also a day like this not being  do you think that has changed now, do you think if someone went along to an open day or within the school structure, would they feel it is more inclusive today?

Pippa Britton:

 I know a young man who's a wheelchair user, and he's, he's about 21 now. So, he's fairly recently gone through the school system and in his particular school, they said that there was inclusive sports what that meant was there was equipment in the gym that he could use rather than going out and playing cricket with everybody. And when I spoke to him about it, you know, I said, all they needed to do was for, you could hit the ball and somebody else could run for you. And, you know, something as simple as that would've really enhanced his school experience

 And yet I speak to other kids and they really have a great experience in school and they're fully included. So the challenge, I think, comes with those teachers who feel confident and able to work with kids who have a disability. And when it comes to children as well, a child with a disability is much more self aware than a child that doesn't have a disability.

If you have to wait until you're four years old, because you figure out, you can't figure out how to put your socks on in the morning, cuz your legs work in a funny way. Actually you think about those things a lot more than a child who just learns all of that as part of the process. And so I think including the children themselves in the decision making. And, and I know for myself and it's a long time ago now, but I once, you know, had a teacher who said, ‘no, you can't do that’. And you know, and it was something that I felt well, I, I could do it, just give me a chance and I can do it. as I said, we just need to be a bit more open and say to the kids, you know, uh, well, if, if you don't feel you can do it like this, maybe we can work together and find a way that you can do something.

Sue Anstiss:

Oh, that's fascinating that whole,  concept of them being more self aware. I hadn't really thought about that. But of course that is, is so true. Isn't it? You talked about archery and missing the target in those early weeks, but what was it about the sport that you love that clearly then did get you hooked in it.

Pippa Britton:

I, I think, um, I think for me, I'm one of these people that I like to see things improve. When I first started, I measured it in how many times this week I managed to hit the target. And then that became, how many times did I miss the target? And then of course it, it it's all about that incremental score and always setting myself the next target. So the most you can score in archery is 1,440.

And I reached a point for example, um, not long before I started competing internationally where the international scores were around the 1300 mark that you needed to qualify for the team. And I was getting by out 1,275. So I only needed 25 points. I wasn't quite certain where to get them from at that stage. But it gave me a, a target of that's what I want to achieve. I'd like to get on the team next year, I need 25 points, what will I do to get them? So in my case, I was a bit of coaching, slightly better equipment, work a bit harder, get a bit stronger, tie all of those things together and if each of those gives you four points, then, um, and you've got six of 'em, well, that's 24 of your 25 points, isn't it?

Sue Anstiss:

I love that.  And you mentioned there that, I guess there's different components. Clearly you need great upper body strength, but I'm interested in the mental strength around being an archer too. And, and was there support from sports psychologists as part of your training as a Paralympic athlete?

Pippa Britton:

Yes, the, there was, and for me personally, sports psychologists provided the real key to me being successful. I think there were, there were two people who, who really kept me together as it were. the one was my physiotherapist, who I seemed to be constantly visiting and the other was my sports psychologist. And I distinctly remember my first ever world championships where, I found myself in a situation where I was going to be going out to the finals field and it was going to be the, you know, the first time I'd ever done it. And the night before I went to the psychologist and I said, I want to go home.  I don't want to compete tomorrow. And it was a little bit of fear, a lot of fear. A lot of, thinking what if I make a complete fool of myself? What if I miss the target in front of an audience?. First of all, he just, uh, took me out to the, to the field. And he said, this is what it's going to look like. And this is where the people are going to sit. And this is what you're going to experience because that fear of not knowing what's coming around the corner, I think drives a lot of this and then understanding what you are there to achieve. So you are there to shoot every arrow the best you can shoot every arrow to worrying about who's watching you, is not what you really need to be doing. You need to be concentrating on your own performance.

And the thing that really made the difference for me is ‘what's the very worst thing that can happen’. And the very worst thing that could happen is I missed the target. And then everybody would feel very sorry for me, nobody would shout and jeer and point. And, thankfully I never ever missed the target in front of a crowd, but, but the reality is that you need to find the things that are the key for you. And for me, they were, what am I supposed to be doing here? And what's the worst thing that can happen. And that allowed me to really compete at my best in those pressure moments.

Sue Anstiss:

Excellent. And I, I do remember watching, some of the archery at the Paralympics and I watched back some of the, videos of you competing at London 2012 and the spectator is so wonderful and supportive and you seem really relaxed and you're waving and lots of smiling waving at the crowd. So how do you then go from that to completely still yourself for something that does require such precision?

Pippa Britton:

Yes. So my, my earlier attempts, I suppose, as we call 'em attempts, what I tried to do is I tried, tried to block everything out. People would say, just imagine that you are in your local club there's no crowd there. And I, I found the pressure that I put on myself to try and block out everything around me. I, I found, I really, wasn't very good at that. All you need to do is to be able to concentrate for a very short period of time, but you need to understand where you switch off and where you switch on. And that's how I used to think of it. And I used to have a little, um, little picture attached to my quiver of a light switch to remind me that that's exactly what I needed to do was to switch on and to switch off.

So it means that you can look at the crowd, you can wave at the crowd. Um, I remember at London, I looked up to my right and I saw my mother's next door neighbor. And, uh, and, and I remember noticing her and, and thinking, oh, that's, um, you know, that's nice. I've just seen my mother's next door neighbor. She was stood up actually right near one of, in a very steep stand, right near the edge. And I was, I was thinking, I hope she doesn't fall, but then you have to stop and take a deep breath, look at the target, look at the light switch, switch off. And then you need to focus on those things that make the shot. Perfect. So for me, the things that made the shot perfect were not gripping my bow too tightly, making sure that the way I drew my bow was really smooth.. And then I used to think about how I would feel after the shot had finished, because after you shoot a perfect arrow, there's a moment that, you know, and any archer knows that that's the arrow that will go in the 10, because when the shot is over, you feel your body is in a certain position. 

Sue Anstiss:

And d- has, has archery got better and betters years have gone by, so you talk about that for, I can't remember now what you said, 14,000

Pippa Britton:

400, 1440 1440,

Sue Anstiss:

Uh, the wrong way. Um, so are people getting closer to that and does the sport then change, make the targets further away or, or, you know, does it make it harder as people get more experienced and more skilled?

Pippa Britton:

Yeah. Yes, that's exactly what's happened. Okay. Um, so there's, uh, um, the speed of an arrow, as it comes out the bow are getting quite technical, but, um, the speed of an hour coming out of the bow, the faster it goes, the less likely it is to be deviated by weather, et cetera, et cetera. So you can have a certain poundage of your bow, but certain energy from the bow is lost through inefficiency. So the more efficient the bow manufacturers can make the bows, the stronger arches can get. So the higher the poundage, they can shoot all of those things contribute to the speed of the arrow and the accuracy of the arrow. So yes, world archery has changed the distances and the sizes of the target face that you shoot at. So the kind of bow that I shot used to shoot at 70 meters on 122 centimeter face, the center of the target,  the 10 is about the size of the CD. And, um, now what they've done is actually brought targets slightly closer, but they have reduced the size of the center of the target. And, so that, means that you just have to be even more precise. Yes.

Sue Anstiss:

Brilliant. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's an education in itself, isn't it? I fantastic. And you are one of the few disabled archers that also shot for an abled bodied team. So do those competitions feel different?

Pippa Britton:

Well, arch archery is a sport where there aren't that many disabilities specific events you know, every competition that I would do within Britain from the British Championships to my local county championships, those kinds of things, I wouldn't be shooting in a disability specific event. I would be shooting in an able bodied event. The only disability specific events I did were things like the Para archery world ranking shoots the world championships, European championships, Paralympic games, everything else that I competed, I competed within the able-bodied landscape and that's the same for disabled arches across the world. And I always found because, you're in a field and if your target is 50 meters or 70 meters away, wheelchairs are not very clever for getting across fields. And so I would find that I would turn up at a tournament and if there was nobody there to collect my arrows from the target, I’d often find your target companions were to do so, even though you were in competition with them or the tournament organiser would organise somebody to come and collect your arrows for you. And that's one of the things that makes it a very inclusive sport.

Sue Anstiss:

What a young, disabled person today taking up archery have a, a clearer pathway to that elite level than you had as you were getting started. Has that changed?

Pippa Britton:

I'm not certain how much that has changed. I think when you have a sport that is inclusive to start with, there's a feeling of not needing to make massive improvements. If you have a sport that's completely inaccessible, I think there are sports out there that have made great, great efforts to try and include people or perhaps to come up with different versions of the sport. If you take something like rugby league, for example, um, you know, wheelchair rugby league is a completely new, sport whereas in archery, because you have that opportunity for everybody to be able to compete in the same field at the same time, I think they, I don't think things have changed, uh, a great deal.

Sue Anstiss:

And halfway through your career, you had a major operation on your back. So can you tell us a little bit about that and how that then impacted you?

Pippa Britton:

I had a curvature of the, I had a double curvature of the spine that was, quite significant. And as I got older, it got worse. And by the time, the middle of my archery career rolled around I was extremely bent and very, very lopsided, and struggling quite a lot, so I had surgery to straighten me out now. They didn't completely straighten me out. but, = they massively improved things, and I had six months off archery and went back to it, uh, which was, I think the surprise of everybody including me, but I did end up becoming, much more of a full-time wheelchair user as a result of that. And it's interesting because in some ways that's improved my life enormously. I, and I think that surprises people when they hear me say that, but the reality is that before I had the surgery, even though I was walking around with a very big limp, I really couldn't walk very far. I struggled a lot. I was in a lot of pain, whereas now I use a wheelchair. I'm able to go much greater distances with a lot less effort. 

Sue Anstiss:

And you went on to compete at 24 international events and won 24 medals. What, what kept you going for so long in this sport? You said, obviously you left and then came back to it after your operation, but, but how did you maintain, I guess, that commitment for so long?

Pippa Britton:

I had the surgery in 2006 and, I had six months out where I couldn't shoot. The thing is that Beijing Paralympic games was really not very far away. And I really wanted to do a Paralympic games and I hadn't done one before, so that kept me going there. And then there was, the four years to London and the opportunity of a home games. So plainly that was in my mind. And then I had to think about how long I wanted to compete for. And my thought was, I need to decide what I'm gonna do in my life after sport. So my plan was to retire after Rio. The reality is that I had a fall before then and ended up with a shoulder injury that was never going to be good enough that I would be able to get back. And so I found myself retiring a bit earlier than I planned.

Sue Anstiss:

And, and how tough was it to stop then? And to lose that sense of identity as a Paralympic archer?

Pippa Britton:

It's really difficult because people say to you, what do you do for a living? And you say I'm a Paralympic archer. And then one day they say, what do you do for a living? And you say, well, actually I haven't got a clue any longer and mentally that's, that's quite difficult. I didn't feel that I was well supported in my, exit. Some of that I suppose, comes down to the fact that I didn't retire at the time I had planned to retire but some of it is that I don't know how good we are at supporting people when they leave the sport because the focus for the sport and the elite coaches is on the team that they have, that they're taking to the next event, not to those people who are leaving the system.

Sue Anstiss:

I guess what more can we do and how important is it to retain those athletes, especially women and not just women, but, but within the sport itself so that they become part of the, the future of the sport working in the sport.

Pippa Britton:

I do think we lose a lot of people. Archery is a sport where you've got quite a lot of people in the team who are older. And so they may have had careers beforehand and, uh, different focus in their lives, but in sports where you've got, people who are younger, there's lots of sports, encourage people to go to university at the same time as they're competing, but they don't always encourage them to go to university to study something that would be helpful to sport. People study all sorts of things and we have a whole bunch of people don't we who've gone through Olympic and Paralympic programs who could bring amazing insight into coaching, could bring amazing insight into governance, could bring amazing insight into sports administration, into the media, into all sorts of things and we talk a lot about the value that sport brings into our lives. So if we lose good people from sport. We don't just lose them from being coaches in the future. We lose them in all sorts of ways. And, and I, and I think that if you can, going back to that thing, we were talking about childhood experiences and growing up and why it's important to have diversity. We can bring diversity from sport. And there are people, people who, who come through sport who come from, you know, really disadvantaged backgrounds, because they're great at playing football, or they're great at whatever it happens to be. But these are not people who have a traditional and standard CV, but they bring a wealth of understanding of all sorts of concepts, of risk and, you know, planning and all sorts of things. It's just about how do we nurture their understanding of what value they could bring in the future, and then not treating them in a way that they leave the sport and they hate it because that's, the big challenge is if you are so focused on your current cohort, that you don't touch base or support those people who leave and perhaps they've left, not because they've planned to leave, but because they've had an injury or maybe they got dropped from the team, and they've pretty, they feel pretty sore already because things aren't going the way that they want them to. If they then go, don't get any support at all, it's very easy for them to go. I really hate whatever the sport is and I never ever want anything to do with it ever again. And then they go off in a different direction, then we'll lose all of that valuable stuff, including the hurt that they felt, which is also valuable.

Sue Anstiss:

Yeah, absolutely, for shaping the future isn't it? Um, you and I first met online, as we meet everywhere online at the moment I, we met online at a conference talking about diversity and inclusion. So how did your leadership journey begin in sport?

Pippa Britton:

It very first started with us needing an athlete representative just locally. I put up my hand and I said, well, I don't mind knocking on the performance director's door. So that's kind of, I guess, very loosely how it started. It was, an entry in, and then I was encouraged to apply to be the athlete representative for Para Archery at world archery level. And, I got elected which was great. And then I had the opportunity to go to meetings at World Archery. And, I campaigned actually to have the athlete representative Para Archery included in the Para Archery committee rather than in the athletes committee, because the athlete committee very much focuses on events and, particularly Olympic events. And that's not a criticism. but, when it comes to power archery, there's a lot more to consider, you know, there's classification to consider, there's access. There's all sorts of other things that if we were talking about them in the athletes committee would only be one for one person. So I managed to get a seat at the table at the Para Archery committee. And one of the first questions I asked was why there was an event we had that only had men, and there was no women's option to compete. And the answer I was given at that very first meeting was there aren't enough women. Now, plainly there are plenty of women in the world now, plenty of women doing archery. And this particular category it's true. There are probably proportionally more men with this type of disability than there are women because it's for, , tetraplegics or equivalent.

So proportionally, there are more men who've had motorbike accidents for example, than women. but that didn't mean there weren't any women. And I felt that it was a bit dismissive. So, I thought it would be good to go on a mission. I basically went out to all women I knew in various countries. And I asked them, do you know of any women in your country who, if this category existed would be interested and 12 months later I went back and I said, um, well, there are three in Sweden and four in Britain and two in Germany. And, they said, right now we've got the evidence.

Pippa Britton:

We can do something about this. And I realised that if you want to make change happen, you have to be at the table where the decisions are made. We now have that category. Women were competing in Rio for the first time in 2016. So, I'm really proud of that, but it did make me see that you need to be able to speak up, not be afraid. And it also gave me some of the sort of nuts and bolts of understanding, understanding I needed to get evidence. And I spoke a little bit earlier about, uh, athletes understanding risk. And, uh, you know, if you are an Archer, for example, it's that risk is just a, what happens in, uh, so what happens if your bow breaks, you need a spare boat? What, how many arrows should you take? You know, that's understanding risk. And I tho those things, evidence, risk planning just made me see the skills I had in myself that I hadn't really noticed before I said,

Sue Anstiss:

And I, I did read that you weren't successful the first time you applied to the board of Sport Wales, but you are now vice chair. Yes. So can you share a little of that journey, especially for people that listen to the podcast that might be thinking about board roles in the future?

Pippa Britton:

There are two things I think that happened the first one that was the most significant to me. I went along for my first interview and, as an athlete, I was thinking, well, I know everything about sport and so therefore they should put me on the board. Plainly you know, there are lots of things that I, I didn't know and I've since done a diploma in corporate governance actually. And I now realise that, uh, being on the board of sport Wales is not just about sport. It's all about governance. But after my interview, I received a call from the chair at the time and she said to me, would you like some feedback so I said, oh, that would be absolutely fantastic, thank you. And so she said, come in and see me at a certain time. And I went in thinking, I know lots and lots of things. And I came out thinking, I don't know anything really. It wasn't that they were critical in any way because they genuinely weren't, they were incredibly supportive, but they said to me, these are the areas in which you were weak and you need to grow. Perhaps you could think about getting some qualifications in this area. You probably need to  increase the number of people, you know

So that you are broadening your experience of other people,  we're back to talking about, you know, diverse experiences again. And I came out, I was really inspired thinking, this is what I'd like my future to look like. I'd like to be Laura McAllister, you know, basically when I came out the room, that's, that's what I, that's how I felt. And I think that's a wonderful thing, isn't it, that she was able to do that. And she's, incredibly,  every time I see her know she's still incredibly supportive and I've been very lucky to be supported by a number of really inspirational women.

Sue Anstiss:

That's so powerful to hear isn't it? fantastic to hear and so powerful to, to see that impact that it, that it has. I know you are also vice chair of UK, Anti-Doping board and clearly doping has been very much in the headlines recently during the Winter Olympics and all the kind of horrors that unfolded and the ice dance for, Kamila Valieva and the other young Russian dancers. And I think we often think about drugs and sport making men and women bigger and stronger, but clearly they can also be used to build endurance and, and delay puberty. And you end up with a case in point here where you almost need a child's body to win those medals. So, I wonder how you feel in terms of the, kinda that, the ice dance and that area, but should we be setting age limits, do you think for athletes competing at the very highest levels in some sports?

Pippa Britton:

It's, it's a very interesting question. I don't know that we should, but I think we, what we don't need is sports and countries, where there is a culture of using drugs to try and force people to be a certain shape or size, for example. I mean, there, there are drugs you can use in archery, for example, to lower your heart rate, to keep you calm under pressure. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't matter what your sport there's going to be something and, and the harm that drugs can do performance enhancement is all about whether you are cheating, somebody else out of a medal, but then the harm that is being caused to athletes by unscrupulous culture within sport coaches and systems is what we really need to be focusing on.

I think sometimes we focus very much on individual cases, whereas we need to be concentrating on how do we make systems better? How do we stop the supply in the first place is going to a big challenge, but I, I don't know how I feel about age limits, because where would you put the age limit? And, and we all know don't we, that when it comes to,  one 12 year old swimmer and another 12 year old swimmer it can be a massive physiological difference just naturally, because of their heritage and gene, all sorts of things.

Sue Anstiss:

I'm interested to get more of your thoughts and advice for those working in sport that want to be better allies to disabled people. I sometimes get worried that I might say, or do the wrong thing. For example, when I'm at an event and there's a wheelchair athlete there, do I kneel down? Do I bend over? Do I pull up a chair? Do I ask them what they prefer or is that patronising? And it's a small point, but I think it is an example of what, something that needs to be addressed almost to make people feel welcome. So I don't know what your thoughts are and what advice you might give to, to others within sport or within society generally,

Pippa Britton:

It's an interesting statistic that, about 65% of people feel uncomfortable in talking to somebody with a disability. And, and that's for exactly the same reason as you. All of those things that you've just said to me are because you don't want to upset the person that you're talking to and generally it's my experience in life that most people afraid of saying the wrong thing, because they don't want to cause a offense and they don't want to upset the person. So you have to think about how that makes you feel. First of all, if you feel uncomfortable in any given circumstance, the chances are that'll rub off from the person that you are talking to. So that I would say that's the most important thing is to feel comfortable about what you do. If for example, there happens to be a chair handy, then why not sit down on it, but if you have to rush off into another room to get a chair and drag it back and sit on it, then that's actually quite uncomfortable. And I personally, I don't like it, particularly when people bend down as if they were talking to a small child, you know, that thing where they put two, their hands on their knees and they, and they bend down and they're right close to you, but I I'm perfectly happy if they want to stand up, but they probably have to stand just a little bit further away, you know? So I don't get a crick in my neck when I'm looking at up at them. So it's about that sort of comfortable space and that comfortable angle of viewing, and how long you're going to be talking to somebody for makes a big difference, because if you are actually going to be, you know, next to me at a festival somewhere, and we're going to be having a long conversation, then why not just sit on the grass beside me? So I, I would say it's about thinking about how you feel comfortable, because that is actually going to have a big impact on how you make the other person feel. And if it looks like they're craning their neck to look at you, then it's at that point, you might say, would it be easier for you if I sat down? Yeah. Um, so there's something around that just being, comfortable around people. I'm please don't stand behind a wheelchair user if you want to talk to them. Cause it's very annoying.

Sue Anstiss:

So practical, practical, sensible advice. Isn't it? The code for sports governance that we mentioned earlier has had an impact on the makeup of boards and it's kind a clear requirement for funded bodies to drive diversity. and I think those with a declared disability on sports boards increased from 3% in 2015 to 13 in 2021. So we are making progress. I'm interested to know what you think we need to do now to ensure that that progress is, is maintained in the future.

Pippa Britton:

Particularly with sports. I think we need to get more, more people who are currently athletes, thinking about what they might be able to give back in the boardroom because that athlete voice in the boardroom is just vital. Particularly when you're talking about sports governing bodies and the boards of sports governing bodies, the, the whole reason for governance is, is not to run the business or pay the bills. It's about what impact do you have on the person? If we go to archery, for example, the board of Archery, GB, isn't just there to pay the bills or the people who work for them. It's there to ensure that everybody who wants to have a go at archery in the country, whoever they are, has access to a club and a field and they can compete if they want to they can be confident that there are safeguarding measures, so their children will be safe if they wanna have a go. So it's about what, what difference you are making to the people who want to play the sport. But we need athletes to have the skills, to be able to sit around that table. And just like I said about, you know, when you asked me about Sport Wales, at that point, I had all of them,  know-how about sport and pathway development and elite sport, and an understanding of all of that. But I didn't understand those things that,  the other things that I needed to be making decisions on in order to make the sport happen. So I think there's something around, how do we nurture, people to get them interested in doing committee were representing their other athletes, thinking about whether little Johnny can go out and play volleyball on Saturday and, and bring those skills into the boardroom, I think is vital.

Sue Anstiss:

And finally you've clearly long been passionate about wanting it to be a, a fairer better world for other people. A but kinda what's next for you? What, what ambitions do you have for the future?

Pippa Britton:

It sounds quite cheesy sometimes doesn't it, when you say you want the world to be a fairer place, but,  I wish it was. I'm, involved in,  at the moment, disability rights task force in, in Wales. I do quite a lot of work within, within the sort of crossover between sport and health, because I absolutely believe that people who take part in sport are stronger mentally and better supported and they're able to get out in fresh air and things like that, that support them mentally also physically,  If people are more physically active when they're younger, they're less likely to grow up to be diabetic or you know, have heart attacks or what have you when they're older. So I think there's a real crossover for me between health and sport.

And I'm also really interested  in where people live in our local communities and the impact that, that that can be had, with working with people from different walks of life who might come through housing route, for example. So my future lies in governance for sure but only with those things that really sit within my values, the things that I care about for the people in my community, for people in Wales, people in Britain  and for athletes more generally across the world, I guess,

Sue Anstiss:

Thanks so much to Pippa for so openly sharing her experiences with me. It's been a huge privilege to talk to a number of Para athletes for The Game Changers so do go back and have a listen to the likes of Tanni Grey- Thompson, Lauren Steadman,  Sarah Storey and Anne Wafula Strike. 

You can find more about all of my previous guests at fearlesswomen.co.uk. And as well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the Women's Sport Collective, a free network for all women working in sport. You can sign up for Changing the Game, our free weekly newsletter, which highlights the developments in women's sport. And there's also more about my book Game On! The Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport. 

Thanks once again, to Sport England for backing The Game Changers through the National Lottery and to Sam Walker, who does a super job as our executive producer, along with Rory Auskerry on sound production. Finally, thanks to my brilliant colleague, Kate Hannon at Fearless Women.

Do come and say hello on social media, where you'll find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook @SueAnstiss. The Game Changers, fearless women in sport.