The Paris 2024 Olympics have reached a milestone in the celebration of women in sport because they are the first games to have equal parity in numbers for the men and women competing in them – well almost, of the 11,055 total number of athletes taking part this year, 5,432 are women (49.1%), and 5,623 are men (50.9%).
This journey to full and equal participation of men and women in sport has been slow. Reasons for this are complex but reflect the change in social attitudes towards women over the last 120 years. A telling quote reflecting early attitudes towards women in sport, comes from the co-founder of the modern Olympic Games and former International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Pierre de Coubertin, who said that women competing in the games would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic [sic], and improper.” Women certainly had a big hurdle of prejudice to overcome with such opinions prevailing at that time.
It is not surprising then that women were absent from the first original modern games of 1896. However, in the Paris games of 1900, 200 women, or 2.2% of the total number, did compete.
Charlotte Cooper of Britain was one of them and made history in 1900 as the first woman to be awarded an Olympic gold medal with her success in the individual tennis event (pictured below). Other than her singular achievement competition between men was the dominant feature of the 1900 games and for many years thereafter.
It is not surprising then that women were absent from the first original modern games of 1896. However, in the Paris games of 1900, 200 women, or 2.2% of the total number, did compete.
For instance, in the London games of 1908, the 37 female participating athletes were limited to only three individual events: archery, tennis and figure skating. This situation improved slightly at the 1912 Stockholm games when 47 women took part, but there, only after facing fierce opposition were women allowed to take part in swimming and diving competitions. At Stockholm 1912 the range of sporting events for women had increased in number and range, but peculiarly there was a competition for women in the arts! This art category remained in 1924 at the Paris Olympics and a Dorothy Margaret Stuart there received a silver medal for her entry into the ’Mixed Literature’ event.
In the 1928 Olympics women were banned from competing in all races of more than 200m, and this rule would not change until 1960!
The gradual inclusion of women in all sports progressed at a very slow pace over the subsequent years, until finally in 1994 the IOC formally acknowledged the principle of gender equality in the Olympic Charter and in doing so made a clear declaration to promote the inclusion of women in all sport. To that end, since then, all individual countries taking part in the games have been encouraged to choose an equal number of women as men in their selection processes. This has not always occurred but the principle to achieve this is there.
At this year’s Olympic competition in Paris even though every effort has been made to equalise women and men’s participation, the men’s events still number 157 while those for women are 152. The United States of America has the largest contingent of athletes competing and 338 or 53% of them are women. Nigeria has three women competitors for every man (63 vs 23) because of its strength in women’s track and field events, soccer and basketball. All the other countries taking part have a range of women included in their squads, with some having negligible representation of women.
A full breakdown of all these statistics is now openly available from the Paris Olympic website (“Gender Equality Through Time” at https://olympics.com/ioc/gender-equality/gender-equality-through-time).
With a projected worldwide audience of 3 billion people, it is hoped that these current Olympic games will showcase to the world what women can achieve and correct their visibility in sport. It is reported that 70% of people watch women’s sport, when it is available to them, but women’s sport still gets less attention with the latest figures showing that only 16% of sports media coverage was of women’s sports. This situation is gradually improving, however, with women’s sporting events experiencing a dramatic rise in attention attracting new participants, sponsorship and advertising. Take for example the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023 which attracted a global audience of nearly 2 billion viewers.
Studies have shown the importance of participation in sport for girls. Girls who play sports develop self-esteem, self-confidence and resilience. They tend to stay in school longer and get better jobs - 80% of female Fortune 500 CEOs say they played sports in their early years.
With these facts in mind, it is important that the Paris games can produce role models for girls and women follow and to encourage them to participate in sport. One such is Lola Anderson, whole gave an emotional tribute to her father after winning a gold medal in the Women’s Quad Rowing Sulls. She had achieved a lifelong ambition of winning an Olympic gold, when at the age of 13, after watching rowing at the 2012 London Olympics she wrote in her diary ‘My name is Lola, and my biggest dream is to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal for team GB’. This dream has been fulfilled twelve years later, after much hard work and dedication on her part. She said later that by just participating in sport it has made her a much stronger version of herself. Her advice to all girls having similar dreams was to find something that you love doing, take each day at a time and try to enjoy the day to day and in several years it will give back to you.
Let’s hope her inspiring words will do the same for other girls and women watching the Olympics in Paris 2024.
コメント