The given bar chart illustrates the number of adult participants in seven major sports (gentle walking,

basketball, cricket, jogging, gym, football and hiking) in one specific area in 1997 and 2017.

Overall, there is an increasing pattern in the number of individuals taking part in most major sports,
with the exception of cricket. Additionally, gentle walking consistently gained the most popularity in
both years, with the figure of 50 thousand participants in 1997 slightly rising to nearly 55 thousand
participants in 2007.

As can be seen in the chart, in 1997, there are about 33 thousand adults participated in jogging and
about 35 thousand in gyms. While the number of gymgoers remained stable in 2017, the number of
jogging participants has slightly risen for 1 thousand people. Beside, it can be observed that both
football and hiking have witnessed the same trend in the number of adult players, which was only
about 33 thousand in 1997, climbing to nearly 50 thousand in 2017.

Turning to basketball, the total number of individuals engaging in basketball has increased
dramatically, with more than 23 thousand players in 2017, over double the figure for players in 1997.
In contrast, the quantity of people involved in cricket has dropped significantly by almost 25 percent,
from 28 thousand members in 1997 to just about 7 thousand members in 2017.