12 March 2019

International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8 March every year and is a focal point in the movement of women’s rights.  This year’s campaign theme of #BalanceforBetter is a call-to-action for driving gender balance across the world. 

Athletics prides itself on being a gender balanced sport and our officials play a major part in achieving this, where currently there are 59% male and 41% female officials in the UK.  In support of International Women’s Day 2019, throughout March, we will feature Officials across the UK to celebrate them and their commitment to athletics.  

Victoria Adesioye

What is your role as an official?
I am a Level 2 field official.

How long have you been officiating?
I have been officiating for almost 10 years.

What inspired you to become an official?
I enjoy helping especially when my daughter was competing.

What would you say to anyone wanting to get into officiating?
Go out there and enjoy. The camaraderie is great.

What has been the highlight of your officiating career?
The highlight of my officiating career is seeing children progress in athletics. Some that started as Quadkids now competing for England, I enjoy helping at Special Olympics athletes showing their enthusiasm and becoming more confident as they compete. 

What can we do as a sport to achieve a #BetterBalance in officiating?
Gender balance in UKA seems quite good. The focus would be in getting more consistent information to officials. If your region has a lot of higher-level officials the growth seems to be more consistent progress quicker. Smaller areas struggle to keep up with such rates. There seems to be a lot more women in grassroots as they take kids to competition. 

Find out more about International Women’s Day here. 

If you want to get involved in officiating, find out more information here.