On International Women’s Day (8 March), Olympics.com looks at the progress made towards gender equality at the Olympic Games and assesses some of the upcoming challenges.
Gender EqualityIOC News
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The Olympic Movement has made great strides with regards to gender equality over recent years. Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics in history to achieve numerical gender parity on the field of play, with the same number of female and male athletes participating in the largest sporting event in the world. This key achievement was made possible due to a large number of initiatives led by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and delivered in partnership with Olympic Movement stakeholders, such as Paris 2024, International Federations, National Olympic Committees and broadcasters.
“The progress is nice,” said fencing World Champion Ysaora Thibus, who is deeply involved in addressing gender equality issues in sport, before looking forward to the next challenges. “There’s also much to improve with everyone involved in sport, including other employees and leaders.”
To mark International Women’s Day 2023, Olympics.com takes a look at some of the achievements the Olympic Movement has made regarding gender equality.
Olympic Movement: Achievements in gender equality
- Paris 1900: Female athletes first took part in the Olympic Games, four years after the first modern Olympics took place in Athens
- 1996: Promotion of women becomes a mission of the IOC and is enshrined in the Olympic Charter
- Tokyo 2020: The last edition of the Games were the most gender-balanced to date with 48.7 per cent of athletes women. At Tokyo 1964, only 13 per cent of the athletes were women.
- Tokyo 2020: Following a rule change allowing one male and one female athlete to jointly carry their flag during the Opening Ceremony, 91 per cent of NOCs had a female flag bearer
- Tokyo 2020: Three disciplines achieved gender balance (BMX racing, mountain biking and freestyle wrestling)
- Beijing 2022: The last Olympic Winter Games were the most gender balanced to date with 45 per cent female athletes
- Paris 2024: Out of the 10,500 athletes participating in the Games, 5,250 will be men and 5,250 women. These Games will be the first to reach full gender parity in terms of number of athletes.
- Female IOC membership currently stands at 40 per cent, up from 21 per cent at the start of the Olympic Agenda 2020
- Youth Olympic Games: The Youth Games Buenos Aires 2018 and Winter Youth Games Lausanne 2020 reached full gender parity in overall athlete participation (2,000 athletes per gender in 2018 and 936 in 2020)
- Female representation on the IOC Executive Board stands at 33.3 per cent, versus 26.6 per cent before the Olympic Agenda 2020
- 50 per cent of the members of IOC Commissions positions have been held by women since 2022, compared with 20.3 per cent prior to the Olympic Agenda 2020. In addition, a record high of 13 of the 31 commissions were chaired by women in 2022.
Paris 2024’s commitment to gender equality
Today, only one per cent of sports facilities in France are named after women. In order to contribute towards change, 70 local authorities certified “Terre de Jeux 2024”, with the assistance of Paris 2024, have committed to renaming their sports facilities with the names of prominent women.
On International Women’s Day (8 March), the city of Livry-Gargan in the suburb of Paris will name its football pitch “Marianne Mako” to pay tribute to the iconic sports journalist who passed away in 2018.
As the organiser of the world’s biggest sporting event, Paris 2024 is working to improve the position of women in sport. While female athletes first competed at the Games at Paris 1900, France is preparing to host the first Games with full numerical gender parity on the playing field. After choosing a woman’s face for its emblem, Paris 2024 has developed a schedule for the Games that ensures balance between genders for “prime time” sessions in order to promote women’s sport to the public, particularly young girls.
“Because equality also involves visibility, the renaming of these sports facilities with women’s names is a key challenge,” said Tony Estanguet, President of Paris 2024. “We thank the local authorities working with us who, through these symbolic actions - which are not only strong but also concrete - contribute to making sport more inclusive and equal.”
Further challenges for the Olympic Movement
While the same number of female and male athletes will compete at Paris 2024, there is still a real gender gap across all leadership roles at the Olympic Games, such as that of Chef de Mission, Technical Official and coach. At Tokyo 2020, only 13 per cent of coaches were women and 10 per cent at Beijing 2022.
The IOC has launched many initiatives to address this issue, including working in partnership with International Federations, NOCs and Organising Committees to open up more coaching roles and pathways to women, such as the WISH programme (Women in Sport High Performance Pathway) which is funded by Olympic Solidarity. The programme aims to provide training to 100 female coaches in the lead-up to Paris.
The IOC is also committed to going a further step by implementing an ambitious 2021-2024 plan.
In May 2021, the IOC approved 21 Gender Equality and Inclusion Objectives for 2021-2024. These objectives build on the progress achieved as part of the Olympic Agenda 2020 and the IOC Gender Equality Review Project and set out actions to help achieve Recommendation 13 of the Olympic Agenda 2020+5.
Based on consultations with internal and external stakeholders, and taking into account the global context, the objectives centre around five focus areas: Participation, Leadership, Safe Sport, Portrayal and Resource Allocation, and are categorised into the IOCs three areas of responsibility: the IOC as an organisation, the IOC as owner of the Olympic Games and the IOC as the leader of the Olympic Movement.
