Paris Olympics: The long road to equal participation at the Games

Paris 2024: A historic journey towards gender equality in the Olympics over 128 years.

With Paris 2024 setting a new benchmark as the most gender-equal Games ever in terms of number, it is time to look back at the long road the modern Olympics has taken in its 128-year-old journey to reach this stage.

When the Games was revived in 1896 at its spiritual home Athens, women’s participation was zero. It was during the first Paris Games in 1900 when 22 women (2.2 per cent out of the 997 participating athletes) were reluctantly allowed to compete for the first time.

Paris again took the lead with a significant number of women participation (the number crossing 100 for the first time, with 125 women out of 3070 athletes) in 1924 and ultimately attained equality after a hundred years.

“Although Paris 1924 was the last edition of the Games at which women were not able to compete in athletics events, their participation in tennis, fencing, swimming, and — albeit less prominently — in other events (sailing and artistic gymnastics) was significant at a time when they were still being firmly rejected by the world of sport,” wrote Thierry Terret, former minister delegate for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, in Olympic Review.

The iconic image of legendary tennis player Helen Wills in all whites, wearing a loose white top, a long skirt, socks up to her knees and a visor cap, lunging forward to play a volley leaves a lasting impression. Athletes like Wills, who not only claimed two gold medals but also won multiple Grand Slam titles later, did a world of good to promote women’s participation in sports in general and in the Olympics in particular.

It has taken more than a century for different sports disciplines, ruled mostly by men, to slowly concede and let female athletes compete.

Although athletics, one of the most anticipated disciplines, permitted women to take part in 1928, it was not until 1984 that the women’s marathon event was added. Three other popular sports — swimming, fencing and gymnastics — started witnessing women athletes from 1912, 1924 and 1928 respectively.