‘There are so many crazy stories’: the hunt for every sports statue in world

Chris Stride leads project that gives insights into UK society - such as statues of Lester Piggott outnumbering those of women

There are more statues of Lester Piggott in the UK than there are of sporting women," said the statistician Chris Stride with dismay. It is really bad ... there are hardly any at all."

In fact, there are a fewer than a handful of sporting women celebrated with public statues. They include the pentathlete Mary Peters on the outskirts of Belfast; the 1930s Wimbledon champion Dorothy Round in Dudley; and the trailblazing footballer Lily Parr at the National Football Museum in Manchester.