As for women's sport, well if we want true equality we should of course abandon men's and women's events completely and just let everyone compete against each other.

That would of course mean your average Olympic team would be at least 95% male so I don't imagine it would be especially popular with female athletes, but we should remember that by splitting the genders for events we are already discriminating and thus giving women special treatment and allowing them to perform to a much lower standard.

"the consequence is that women's cycling is secondary or perceived to be secondary to men's cycling" This is an issue but lets be honest here - 99% of women's sports are secondary to men and they still would be if they had the same amount fo events. There are two main reasons:

1. The fact that they generally perform to a much lower standard - i.e. slower times in cycling, comedy goalkeeping in football etc etc

2. A complete lack of competitiveness in so many sports due to the lack of participants. Look at the difference between first and last place in most events - there just isn't the quality and depth in women's sports, and thus they aren't as interesting as there aren't as many potential winners nor is there the same drama which results from such competition.

You can't really blame too mcuh on the broadcasters either. Women's sports are only ever going to be popular if the standard is high or in rare cases where the lack of athleticism and power can actually make the sport more interesting and thus sometimes compensate for the lack of quality (eg tennis). Dont' get me wrong - broadcasters should do more - not for any of the sports you suggest but for potentially popular ones such as women's football, but most women's sports will always be secondary to mens exactly because they are performing to a much lower standard and cannot compete with men. Women are only ever equal to men in events when they compete with them.

Given the current system I'd certainly be in favor of women having the same range of events as men. The key point you seem to have missed is before we start introducing more events for women, the priority should in fact be to make existing women's events as rigorous as men's, especially where the rewards are the same. Just look at Wimbledon - men playing so many exhausting (and entertaining) 5 set matches, whereas a woman plays 3 sets at most, round after round and thus does only 60% of the work. Despite this they get exactly the same prize money - a cast iron genuine case of a pay gap if there ever was one! (I don't suppose Ms Harman will ever be taking action to solve it though will she?). Female athletes would get a lot more respect if they actually had to do some closer to much as the men.

Finally, Lynne seems to be forgetting that even men's cricket is incredibly boring - any sport where you stop for tea or rain and go on day after day after day is quite frankly ridiculous. I'd say the men get too much coverage and the women cricketers exactly the right amount.