The Games have become the largest gender-equal sporting event in the world, but efforts are still needed to achieve real equality.
In the final act of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, an imposing scene was the final touch of the ceremony: right next to Teddy Riner, three-time French Olympic champion, was Marie-José Perec, French athlete winner of three Olympic gold medals. Both, in almost perfect synchronicity, lit the cauldron in the Tuileries Garden. Minutes earlier, on a boat on the River Seine, two women, Nadia Comaneci and Serena Williams, and two men, Carl Lewis and Rafael Nadal, carried the Olympic flame.
This was the way the Olympic Games organisers told the world that, for the first time in history, there is an equal number of men and women on the playing fields.
124 years ago, when Paris also hosted the Games, only 22 women out of 997 competitors participated. Today, the situation is different.
Although it may seem like just a number, the 50 percent achieved – because it is a historic achievement – represents a struggle of at least 128 years (see timeline). When looking back, female representation has had a thorny path laden with stigma.
In ancient Greece, most women were forbidden from participating in the Olympic Games, even as spectators. When modern competitions were established in 1896, the founder opposed them because he believed that competitions were only for “exalt men’s sport.”
In 1900, in Paris, there were female representatives for the first time, although they were relegated to sports such as golf and tennis. Two and a half decades later, also in the French capital, in 1924, the number increased to more than a hundred.
Since then, participation has gradually increased. The 2012 London Games were the first in which women competed in all sports on the Olympic programme.
There are delegations, such as Colombia, in which women have been the protagonists: of the five gold medals in total, four have been won by women. Mariana Pajón, a BMX cyclist, is the Colombian athlete with the most medals (two gold and one silver); she is followed by Caterine Ibargüen, who has one gold and one silver, as well as Oscar Figueroa, and María Isabel Urrutia, who won the first gold for the country in Sydney 2000.
This year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that “parity between competitors” had been achieved for this year’s edition. The data indicate that in 28 of 32 sports there is an equal number of athletes of both genders, 152 medals are up for grabs for women, 157 for men and 20 for mixed athletes. The figures also indicate that there are 5,250 female representatives in total.
However, despite this great leap in history, which seems to overcome a barrier that seemed far away a century ago, there are still challenges to overcome in order to achieve true gender equality.
One of the difficulties is that not all delegations have women, either due to cultural, religious or political ideologies entrenched in each nation, or because they failed to qualify with the minimum requirements requested by the organization.
The 50 percent participation of women was achieved because there are teams, such as the Colombian one, in which more female athletes qualified (51 women and 38 men). The winter games still have a participation deficit: in 2022, 44.7 percent were women.
This is in addition to the fact that there is still a disparity in media coverage and spectator attendance at women’s events, which causes a noticeable gap, and the notable differences in the payments to female competitors in various countries. One fact cited by UN Women is that no woman appeared on the Forbes 2024 list of the 100 highest-paid athletes in the world and that a global survey showed that, among elite athletes, women earn on average only one percent of what men earn.
Gender inequality is also evident in executive positions. In 1996, the IOC established that 10 percent of decision-making positions should be occupied by women. That percentage increased threefold by 2020. Two years later, numerical equality was achieved on the commissions, a historic high, but efforts are still needed, the international body itself acknowledges.
UN Women warns that by 2023, only 26.9 percent of executive positions in international sports federations will be held by women. And regarding the Olympics, it notes: “While Paris 2024 will break new ground, the representation of women in leadership roles such as chef de mission, technical officer and coach remains remarkably low.”
The truth is that what was achieved at these Games is a triumph that will remain inscribed in the foundations of world sport. Paris has become a disruptive host city, which has bet on closing gaps that have been open for centuries. Not in vain, the logo of the Games is a mix between the gold medal, the Olympic flame and the face of Marianne, the symbol of the revolution exalted in the iconic painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Delacroix in 1830, which represents, among other things, equality. A word that became the greatest Olympic cry this year and that marks the beginning of a new era.
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