Photo Courtesy of Picryl.com.
Semi-finals of the Women’s 200 metres at the Olympic Games, London, 1948.
By Genevieve Zahner ’26
Sports Editor
The Olympic Games, a show of extreme athleticism and skill, are an opportunity for athletes worldwide to compete for global titles. People around the globe gather to participate. However, women have had to fight for the right to participate in sports throughout history.Now, the rates of gender-equal participation are projected to reach an even split in the 2024 games.
Women have been allowed to compete in the Olympics since 1900. Originally, the only sports available to them were tennis and golf. Throughout the 20th century, more sports were added for women athletes, with the most recent additions being baseball and softball, karate, sports climbing, skateboarding and surfing.
According to the International Olympic Committee, in the Paris Games in 1900, only 2% of participants were female. This number has seen a slow but steady increase over time, having grown 46% from 1900 to 2020 to reach 48% female participation in the games, with 2012 being the first year that women were competing in every sport on the program.
The 2024 Summer Olympics are set to be the first Olympics with an even split of participation from both men and women. This is possible because the International Olympic Committee has allocated an equal amount of slots for male and female athletes, according to a U.N. Press release.
The IOC Olympic Agenda reforms have also helped to increase the number of women in IOC commissions to 50%, making 40% of IOC members women. An increase in women’s voices and membership in the IOC could be a contributing factor to reaching full gender parity at the Paris Games.
The International Olympic Committee has gradually been working to improve the number of female athletes participating in the Olympics and has made several advancements towards the final goal of equal gender participation in the elite sport competition. The Brighton Declaration, the Beijing Declaration, the Platform for Action and the amending of the Olympic Charter are some of the steps taken by the IOC and other Olympic organizations to advance opportunities for female athletes.
The Brighton Declaration was created at the World Conference on Women in Sport and gave action guidelines for increasing female involvement in sport at “all levels and in all functions and roles,” according to IMG Women & Sport. The International Working Group on Women in Sport monitored the declaration, providing support and establishing an activist and advocate network. During the two decades the declaration was being monitored, more work has been put in towards eliminating barriers preventing women from participating in sports.
The first time that sports were recognized as a tool for gender equality and empowerment was at the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace in Beijing. According to the International Olympics Committee a document specifically referring to gender equality in sports was created there to progress women’s participation in the Olympics.
The amendment of the Olympic Charter in 1996, which is the document that states the fundamental principles, rules and bylaws that are enacted by the IOC according to the official Olympics website, was important for women’s advancement in Olympic competitions because the language previously used in the charter did not explicitly state any commitment to women’s advancement.
After the amendment, the document noted that the IOC “strongly encourages, by appropriate means, the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures, particularly in the executive bodies of national and international sports organizations with a view to the strict application of the principle of equality of men and women.”
The games in Paris in 2024 stand to be the first Olympic games with equal numbers of both men and women participating out of 10,500 athletes, according to the official Olympics website.
Jay Hartshorn is a Mount Holyoke College Track & Field coach. “It will be great that young girls will have the opportunity to see as many women win medals as men. It's always fun to see who emerges as a star,” he said.
Olympic trials started in January and will continue throughout the spring and into June before the games commence on July 26.