Women's sport could be the BBC's legacy from these games

Lizzie Armitstead, Etienne Stott, Kristian Thomas, Gemma Gibbons, Sophie Hoskings, and 24 other (currently) are household names in Britain.

They are the country’s Olympic medallists, we’ve watched them yell and sob and answer inane questions on the BBC’s sofas. They are our heroes and heroines.

But within, oh, a couple of months, most will be forgotten. Some we will remember again when they reappear in Rio in four years, while others will slip back to the near total obscurity, whence they have so recently emerged.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The BBC is a wonderful broadcaster, and it is busy slathering itself in glory like sunscreen during these Olympics. It is a home games, and the organization made an excellent decision to show every minute of every event on two main channels, 24 extra feeds and three radio stations.  And it has proved that the British public love sport; all sport.

We roared Mo Farah home, yes, but we’ve also gone mad for scullers, cyclists following a moped, whitewater canoers and clay pigeon shooters.

The Beeb has come under a lot of flak for not being able to compete with the commercial behemoth of Sky for the rights to premiership football, test cricket, rugby league, Ryder Cup golf and many more.

It shouldn’t try.

It would be an act of wonderful public service broadcasting to commit itself to showing both minority sports and, especially, women’s sport.

The BBC could resurrect its Saturday afternoon sports magazine Grandstand and show us more sailing, kayaking, judo, handball, volleyball; the list is nearly endless.

To be fair, since Britain started to dominate in rowing and track cycling, the corporation’s coverage of those sports has been excellent. And that includes women’s events. But I suspect if Victoria Pendleton was not competing at the same time as Chris Hoy, if Katherine Grainger wasn’t at the same regatta as Andrew Triggs-Hodge, we would barely hear of them.  The BBC can do more for women.

There is an appetite in the British public to watch and learn about minor sports, and particularly women’s sport. The belief that we only care about (men’s) football is not true; it’s just that, pretty much, it is all we are offered, by television and  newspapers.

But half a million people lined the roads of London and Surrey for  the men’s cycling roadrace; a million came out for the Tour de France  in 2007.  The Tour’s organizers were astonished at the numbers and enthusiasm and have promised to return.

More importantly, 300,000 people stood in pouring rain to cheer the women’s road race. There is no bump from the glamour of European pro racing for that event. Nicole Cooke, one of Britain’s truly great athletes of either sex over the last 10 years could walk down unrecognized in any street. But Brits want to watch her, and her colleagues race, and they proved it last Sunday.

The publicly funded BBC should use the example of the judo players Gemma Gibson and Karina Bryant and use its commercial opponents' strength against them. Let Sky have the Premier League, let it have Test cricket, let it have Six Nations rugby if it must.

But the BBC can afford the rights for women’s cycling, for downhill canoeing, for netball, for women’s golf, for women’s football, for archery, for all of it. I suspect that if a free-to-air broadcaster wanted to show, say, archery to the nation on a Saturday afternoon, it could probably get the rights for free.

The BBC could show us a different side to sport, the good stuff; the ordinary people trying their best, aiming for glory, accepting defeat with courage and taking victory with grace.  A contrast to over-pampered millionaires, baby Bentley’s and racial abuse.

More importantly it could inspire all people, and critically, young women and girls to take up sport and a love of physical activity. It could show them that life can be about striving and achievement, not about worrying about their appearance for the approval of others.

Now, that would be a legacy.