“If we want women’s sport to have success and grow, we have to show up, go along and support events,” says Sue Anstiss MBE. “Watch them! It isn’t just about women watching women, but men and women watching together.” Sue is a founding Trustee of Women’s Sport Trust, Chair of Get Berkshire Active and CEO of Promote, a specialist sport and fitness PR agency. In 2018 Sue was awarded an MBE for her services to grassroots and women’s sport and she has represented team GB as an age-group triathlete. In 2019 Sue launched The Game Changers podcast, featuring trailblazing, fearless women in sport. Guests include Chrissie Wellington, Denise Lewis, Katherine Grainger and Clare Balding. As well as all that, she is mum to three teenage daughters, an open water swimmer and still found time to crochet winter hats for all her swimming pals as Christmas gifts.
SPORTY STORY
Sue and I first met about seven years ago at Bray Lake. I was training for an English Channel relay crossing and Sue was training as a triathlete. Over the years we have swam into each other at various events and swim socials. Sue swims regularly at Bray Lake and in the Jubilee River, she is on her second season of winter swimming. “I like the buzz,” says Sue. “But it is mostly about the community. During winter the people who swim are people like me who are there for the joy of swimming in open water. They are not trying to get the best time for the furthest distance or be the fastest. Cold water swimming makes you braver overall, it makes you do things. Knowing it is going to painful, unpleasant to begin with but exhilarating, putting yourself a little at risk – it has helped me to take on other things in life, put myself out there and be a bit vulnerable.”