The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow takes place between 23 July and 2 August and will see athletes compete across 10 sports.
Dame Laura Kenny believes Glasgow 2026 will be the first Commonwealth Games to truly harness social media.
The slimmed-down Games will not be on free-to-air television in the UK with TNT Sports replacing the BBC as the rightsholder, although the publicly owned broadcaster will still have some live coverage. Kenny, who is Team England President, has put social media at the centre of her work to support the team and the delivery of the Games.
“When I first took on the presidency role, I said one of the key things that I really wanted involvement in was social media and how we bring it to ‘Gen Z’ and the younger generations,” the three-time Commonwealth medallist said. “My role is how do we get it on social media and bring as much attention to it that way as we can because ultimately, if someone isn’t seeing it on the TV, they will see it on their phone because that is the world we are now living in.”
Glasgow 2026 takes place between 23 July and 2 August and will see athletes compete across 10 sports. Victoria in Australia had initially been selected to hold the Games before pulling out due to funding issues. Late last year, Ahmedabad was selected to host the 2030 Games, giving some more certainty to the event’s future.
Kenny’s first experience of a major Games came in India too, as she competed at Delhi 2010 before going on to win five Olympic medals to hold the title as Great Britain’s most successful Olympian. She won gold in Glasgow in 2014 and returns to the Scottish city in a different role.
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As a mum of three, Kenny is keenly aware of the impact social media has on younger generations and is keen to ensure her children don’t see the world as a glossy picture-perfect Instagram carousel.
She added: “I was lucky that my career played out before social media was as big as it is. But I was just at the point where it was a thing, so I got a following anyway, and then social media has grown into the beast that it is.
“It makes me nervous being a parent because social media is so scary, and you can’t make mistakes. If you have a bad performance, it is everywhere; if you have an opinion that someone doesn’t agree with, it is everywhere, and it is quite a scary world.
“I am so open on social media, good or bad, I want to be good and bad because that is what I want my kids to see. I don’t want them to see a pretty painted picture of all these houses that look stunning 24/7, that is not life, and we are just bringing up our kids to think they are not good enough, and I don’t want that.
“I want them to see everything, to see the chaos, both sides, the good and bad, whatever.”
With 225,000 followers on Instagram, Kenny has seen the good and bad sides of social media. And it was posting about breastfeeding that led her to finally take a stand against cruel internet trolls.
She said: “I have always been the type of person who thinks you are better off saying what you think and having the ability to apologise, that is my personality. That is what I try and tell my kids, and social media comes with that.
“The flip side of this is, if something is horrible on there, it is just someone sat on a computer screen, and if you keep saying to yourself, it is just because they are jealous, it is just because they are bored, you can probably validate it because of that.
“There were a couple of negative comments when I posted about breastfeeding, and I just thought, I have taken this for too long. I have taken people writing that I am an attention seeker, I am this that and the other, the reason I posted it is to help other people.
“Because breastfeeding is hard, it hurts, there are so many things that can be awful about it, but you can also get through it. So for someone to turn around and say I was attention seeking, I just thought no, the reason I did it was to help others, I am not having you turn around and comment on there for making me feel bad for trying to help someone else.”
Team England are Ready to Win at the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Keep up to date on https://teamengland.org/
