Women in Sport

Equestrian sports made up a large number of the entered images, and were all of a very high standard. A number were in and out of the top 10, but in the end I settled for a typical scene of a horse riding show-jumping challenge of staying in the saddle after hitting a fence.

Although an older image from the eighties, I was regularly drawn to the aggression and power shown in the ladies expression. An image that you look at without any need to focus on technicalities. I enjoy looking at this image, so it had to be in my top 10.

A colourful and lovely contrast to the white background, coupled with the comical interest, makes it stand out and I enjoy the composition. Any image that puts a smile on my face has to be good in my book. Well done.

I love good quality sport images that show the emotion after the main action. It doesn't mater that this is after a goal, or after the final whistle, it still captures a great moment in time that tells the story, and this is a sharp excellent example.

Thank you all for entering my first competition. Judging wasn't as easy as I thought. I managed to reduce the images to about 200 before taking forever to reduce these to 30 to 40. I apologise to those commended as at some point you were probably in my top 10. I also found it very difficult to chose the best from each sport let alone the top 10. In the end my favourite image was this one. I went with my feelings as this always brought a smile to my face every time I saw it. So thank you - well done!

Cracking image. I love the detail all the way through to the fingers on her right hand. I am aware of this authors work, so for impartiality I was looking for reasons not to chose it, but it is very good and couldn't be left out!

Again a number of quality basketball images made it difficult to pick a favourite to include in the top 10. If nothing else the young ladies likely resulting bruises must make the image worthy of recognition! The background is busy, but I found my eye drawn to the action, as it is a great snapshot in time.

The competition received a number of sports with multiple entries, and surfing was no different. This image stood out from the other quality images for me, even though normally you would expect to see more space to the top right to move into but it works with strong detail in the spray giving a real impression of the power of the water.

I thought long and hard about this image as the dogs are such a strong part of the image rather than the female athlete, but the composition is very strong and for me a worthy addition to the top 10.

This images gives me a feeling of the effort required to get through the race, in addition to the obvious weather conditions. The tight crop adds focus to the facial expression. Worthy of making the top 10. Only way for me to improve this would be to bend down in the mud and take at eye level rather than slightly looking down, but it doesn't take anything away from the image.