Emily Glanvill: A female racer in a male-dominated environment

Alasdair Hooper and Will Moulton are joined by racing driver Emily Glanvill on episode 32 of SportSpiel.

 

FEATURE INTERVIEW

On our feature interview section (3:15) Alasdair chats to Emily about her life in motorsport.

The Scottish racer is just 19 but has a wealth of talent and is showing great potential for the future – in 2016 she won the Teenage Cancer Trust scholarship and in 2017 she was selected for the Scottish Motor Sports Academy.

In this interview Emily takes us through her journey in motor sport and how it brought the best out of her, considering she was a naturally shy individual beforehand.

She also tells us what it means to be a female racer in a largely male-dominated sport and she talks about how the sport helped her come back from a tough moment in her life when her school was suddenly closed, leader her mother – a teacher at the school – losing her job.

With the new women only W Series also generating plenty of headlines Emily gives us her opinions on the concept and she details the challenges facing every driver as they look to climb the ladder – and it’s mainly funding.

Perhaps we should maybe be looking at the finance side of things rather than someone’s gender.

PART TWO

Alasdair and Will present the news round-up (44:25) as they go through some of the important sports headlines from the past couple of weeks, including updates on the shortlist of drivers named that could be in the running to take part in the W Series as well as a welcome funding boost from UK Sport for a variety of British sports ahead of Tokyo 2020.

In our debate topic this week (54:59) we look at a defining week for the future development of women’s football. While French DJ Martin Solveig’s remarks may have taken much of the headlines it shouldn’t be forgotten that Ada Hegerberg was announced as winner of the first ever women’s Ballon d’Or.

The Offside Rule podcast and The Guardian collaborated to bring us the 100 best female footballers on the planet this week, Visa signed a seven-year deal with UEFA to become the first sole sponsor of women’s football and there was the small matter of England being announced as hosts of the European Championships in 2021.

Image credit: With thanks to Emily Glanvill and This Strath Girl Can

All music in this episode is courtesy of Otis McDonald