In the 1924 edition of the Olympic Games, the percentage of female participants was only 4%, and their participation was limited to sports such as swimming, tennis and croquet, according to Agence France-Presse.
On International Women’s Day last March, the International Olympic Committee’s director of gender equality, Marie Chalois, told reporters about the Paris 2024 Games: “For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, we will achieve gender equality in the Games.”
The achievement comes as a result of increased participation of women in every sporting event, reflecting broader social trends that have gradually opened up areas previously reserved for men, from board positions to the right to vote. Salova added at the time: “It took us a very long time until we finally reached 44% women in London 2012, the first edition where women were able to participate in all sports, and then 48% in Tokyo 2021.”
The barriers for women were so high that in the 1920s, before the International Olympic Committee allowed women to participate, they were forced to compete in subsidiary “Women’s Olympic Games”. In Amsterdam in 1928, they were allowed to participate in athletics for the first time, but the sight of exhausted female runners after the 800-meter final so shocked male spectators that they were again excluded.
In 1968, forty years later, women were prohibited from competing in races longer than 200 meters until 1976 due to the physical demands of the marathon, when they were allowed to compete for the first time in 1984 at the Los Angeles Games.
“We’ve come a long way in a relatively short time,” said IAAF President Sebastian Coe in Paris, Salois explained: “We’ve put a lot of effort into organizing the women’s events, making sure they show up at the weekend. There’s a large number of women’s events, or during prime times.
For the opening ceremony, the IOC proposed that each national delegation nominate two flag bearers, one male and one female.
