HAMPSHIRE TV presenter Clare Balding has called on broadcasters to show more women's sport on the small screen.

Balding, 43, is currently one of the main presenters of the BBC's coverage of the Commonwealth Games.

She told Radio Times magazine: ''There needs to be more women's sports on TV. Girls need to see women achieving in sport, and to see sport being a viable career.''

Balding, originally from Kingclere in north Hampshire, who won acclaim for her coverage of the London Olympics and Paralympics and has branched out into wildlife programming with BBC1 show Operation Wild, also urged channel controllers to show more ''live sport'' on network TV.

Asked whether she would ever sign up for a show like Strictly Come Dancing, she said: ''I'd make a fool of myself! I'd rather do programmes where you make something useful. So if there were a Sport Relief challenge to build a school in a village in Africa, I'd do it.''