The graph compares five different kinds of physical activities in terms of participants’ number from 2001 to 2009 in Australia. Overall, there was an upward trend in the number of people engaged in running, aerobics and tennis, with running experienced the most dramatic increase. Despite witnessing the highest level of decrease, cycling was the dominant physical activities during the period shown.
In 2001, cycling was the most popular activity, attracting 4.5 million people, which 1.2 million higher than that of the second most – swimming. After the following four years, both activities recorded an opposite trend, while the number of cyclists significantly went down to 3.1 million people, that of swimmers negligibly grew by 1 million. In the last year, the figure for cycling and swimming stood at 3.6 and 3.3 million people, which overall experienced a remarkable decline by 20% and 10%, respectively.
Turning to the remaining sectors, although just 1.4 million people participated in running in 2001, its participation level saw the highest proportion of change, at 56%, steadily climbed by 8 million people over a period of 8 years. Additionally, aerobics and tennis saw a similar pattern of going up by 0.1 million people every 4 years, with 15% change for the quantity of tennis players, having 1.2 million players in 2009 and 11% change for that of aerobics, at 1.7 million members in the final surveyed year.
