2024 Paris Olympics will be first Olympics to achieve gender parity among competitors
In 1900, women were first allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, starting with the Paris Olympics. Now, 124 years later, female athletes will once again make history in Paris at the 2024 Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided that for the 2024 Paris Olympics, an equal number of around 10,500 athlete spots will be given to men and women. This is the first time in Olympic history that there will be the same number of male and female competitors.
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said, “We are going to see one of the most important moments in the history of women in the Olympic Games and in sports overall.” He also said, “We will see the results of the huge efforts made by the Olympic movement and the women who led the way. This is our way of helping to make the world more equal between genders.”
The number of medals available to men and women will be more balanced than ever before. This is because more events that were once only for men, like Canoe sprint and the 15,000-meter freestyle swim (which Katie Ledecky is really good at), have been added to the Olympic program. In the Paris Olympics, 28 out of the 32 sports will have an equal number of events for men and women.
However, men will still receive slightly more medals than women in Paris. There will be a total of 329 medal events: 152 for women, 157 for men, and 20 for teams with both men and women.
At the 1900 Paris Games, women made up just 2.2% of the athletes and could only compete in five events: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism, and golf. Since then, more and more women have participated in the Olympics.
In the 2012 London Olympics, every country sent at least one female athlete for the first time, and women could compete in all sports, including boxing for the first time. However, women made up only 44% of the athletes. Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 had the highest number of women athletes, at 48% of the total competitors.
