Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games and it started with lawn tennis and golf.
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Women’s participation in Olympics has an evolving history. The Olympics is a well-documented sport, with stories of greatness, and grit. The first time women participated in the Olympics was at the 1900 Paris Games. The number of women participants was less than two dozen, whereas the total number of participants was close to a thousand(997). To bring you to the numbers, women were just 22 and the rest were men. They competed in five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism, and golf.
It was at the Tokyo Games that women’s participation saw a huge rise in women’s participation in Olympics. Women made up almost half of the athletes participating in the Games. For the first time ever, all 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) had one female and one male athlete in their respective Olympic teams. However, this change has come after a long time. Over the course of many years, IOC has maintained that it is doing everything it can to promote gender equality and women’s participation in the Games. Even the Olympic Charter has said the same.
The IOC is committed to gender equality in sport. The Olympic Charter, Chapitre 1, Rule 2.8, states that the IOC’s role is: “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women.”
The feat at the Tokyo Olympics was so remarkable that even the UN Women’s Twitter handle posted about the same and congratulated the Olympics committee for such hosting gender-balanced Games.
“Did you know? This year’s @Olympics was the most gender-balanced Games in history and a landmark for gender balance in sport! #Tokyo2020.” the official UN Women’s handle posted on Twitter.
In the early years of the modern Olympics, women were not well represented. As the result, a rival Women’s Olympics was held. Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games and it started with lawn tennis and golf. Women’s athletics and gymnastics made it to the Olympics in 1928. Over time more and more women’s events were added. In 2012, women’s boxing was introduced. As the result, there was no sport that does not include events for women.
The IOC had earlier estimated women’s participation in Tokyo would be 49%, up from 45% at Rio. The committee wad expected a near-perfect split between the men and the women. Such a feat would have occurred for the first time ever. Tokyo 2020 is predicted to be the most gender-equal yet with female participation, the IOC said. The actual number stood at 48.8 percent of women’s participation in the Games.
For a country like India, the numbers do stand true, since, for the first time ever, India sent a contingent of 119 athletes. Out of that number, 56 athletes were women.
During the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, India just had 19 female athletes. Which, at that point in time just made up less than 30% of the total contingent. The number of female athletes has seen a remarkable improvement since the 2012 London Olympics and took a huge leap in the Rio Olympics. From zero women’s participation at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games, India has made huge progress in the sporting field.
At the Rio Olympics 2016, with about 45% of women’s participation, India could only manage to win two medals, both of which were won by female athletes. PV Sindhu bagged a silver medal in Badminton, and Sakshi Malik returned home with a bronze medal in Wrestling. At the Tokyo Olympics, Sindhu has achieved the feat of being the only Indian to have won two consecutive medals at any Games.
It is not just about the Olympics, even at the Tokyo Paralympics, women’s participation has gone beyond what it was in the last couple of times. This time around, women’s participation at the Paralympics stands at about 40.5 percent. 1,782 women athletes are there for the Tokyo Games as compared to 1,671 athletes who had competed at Rio 2016.
Even at these Games, PV Sindhu, Mirabai Chanu and Lovlina Borgohain won medals for the country. Even the Women’s hockey team made it to the semi finals for the first time. Women’s participation in the Games is as important as hosting the Games.
