The table compares five different physical activities, namely running, aerobics, tennis, cycling, and swimming, in terms of the variation in the quantity of participants over a nine-year period, starting in 2001.
Overall, the proportion for running was recorded as having the highest change, whereas cycling revealed the lowest. In addition, it is apparent that while the statistics of running, aerobics, and tennis were significantly increased, the opposite trend held true for cycling and swimming over the period shown.
The running number witnessed the greatest growth at 156%, which commenced with 1.4 million people and went up considerably to 2.2 million people in 2009. There was a similar upward trend in the figures for aerobics and tennis due to the steady growth at just 0.1 million every four years in both categories, increasing from 1.5 and 1 million participants to 1.7 and 1.2 in 2009, respectively. Therefore, the changing percentages of aerobics and tennis are 11% for the former and 15% for the latter.
Conversely, the parameter for swimming attendees fluctuated around 3.3 to 3.8 million people, seeing a dramatic decline of 10%. Furthermore, cycling was notably decreased over nine years, which dropped by 20%, double the comparison with the figure for swimming. Cycling began with the highest position in the number of people participating with 4.5 million, despite a remarkable decrease to 3.1 million in 2005. This sport rebounded and ended up with a respective quantity of 3.6 million people at the end of the period.