Paris Olympics approaching full gender parity. See the breakdown of athletes by gender

GENEVA (AP) — The founder of the modern Olympic Games and former IOC president, Pierre de Coubertin, once said that women competing in the Games would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and inappropriate.”

More than a century later, the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris aim for gender equality in the same city where women made their Olympic debut in 1900.

The IOC had set a target of 50-50 distribution of the more than 11,000 men and women, including reserves, registered for the July 26-August 11 competitions. However, the latest IOC figures suggest that organizers may fall just short of that target.

Slightly more medal events for men than for women

There is still a slight edge for men among the 329 medal events at the Paris Olympics. The IOC has said there will be 157 events for men, 152 events for women and 20 events for mixed genders.

Of the 32 sports, 28 are “fully gender-equal,” according to the IOC, including the new break-to-music event. Rhythmic gymnastics is still for women only, but men are allowed to compete in artistic swimming.

Mixed team events were heavily promoted. In Tokyo three years ago, vivid images were created by debutants in the 4×400-meter mixed relay in track and the 4×100 mixed medley relay in swimming.

“There is nothing more equal than a man and a woman competing as one team on the same playing field for the same sporting achievements,” said Kit McConnell, IOC Director of Sport.

How many athletes participated in the competition in Paris?

One week before the Opening Ceremony, the official IOC database for the Paris Olympics indicated that 11,215 athletes (including reserve athletes) had registered to participate: 5,712 for men and 5,503 for women, for a 51-49% split.

In athletics, where athletes have to meet high qualification standards, there were 50 more entries for men than for women: 1,091-1,041. In swimming the difference was 464-393.

In football, with 16 teams in the men’s tournament and only 12 in the women’s tournament, the athlete total was 351-264. The wrestling entry has 193 men and 96 women, with a category for men only in Greco-Roman.

In equestrian sports, where men and women compete in the same events, entries were 154-96.

There were no men entered in artistic swimming or rhythmic gymnastics, which have a total of 200 women. There is no male category in rhythmic gymnastics.

Which teams have the most athletes in women’s events?

As the largest team at the Paris Olympics, the United States has the most participants in the women’s events: 338, or 53% of the 638-strong delegation, the IOC database showed this week.

The 38 fewer men are partly because the U.S. qualified a team of 19 participants for women’s hockey but failed to qualify for the men’s competition, and entered nine women for artistic swimming.

France, with invitations to compete in every team event, had registered 293 female athletes. Australia had 276, China 259 and Germany 239.

Other teams, although they have far fewer athletes, have more women in their squad.

Guam, a U.S. island territory east of the Philippines, led the way with 87.5 percent women — seven of the eight-athlete team, according to the IOC database. Guam’s seven women compete in six different sports. Nicaragua is expected to come in with 86 percent women — six of the seven athletes — and Sierra Leone with 80 percent.

Kosovo’s strength in women’s judo — four out of a total team of nine athletes — brings the percentage of women to 77%. North Korea, Laos and Vietnam each have 75% female athletes on their teams.

Which teams have the fewest women?

Six of the 205 official Olympic teams had no female athletes entered: Belize, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

Qatar, which is aiming to host the 2036 Olympics, has just one woman on its team of 14 athletes, or 7%. Half of the Qatari team represents men’s athletics, including reigning high jump champion Mutaz Essa Barshim.

Mali and South Sudan are at 7%. Mali sends 22 male footballers and South Sudan 12 athletes in men’s basketball.

El Salvador has one woman among eight athletes (12.5%).

Two non-binary athletes compete

Among the registered participants in women’s events in Paris are two athletes who identify as non-binary and transgender.

Nikki Hiltz won the 1,500 meters at the U.S. track and field events last month, making her Olympic debut at the Stade de France.

Three years ago, Quinn won Olympic gold with the Canadian soccer team in Tokyo and is returning to defend his title.

When did women first compete in the Olympic Games?

Paris hosted the first female athletes at the 1900 Olympics — the second modern Games — with 22 of the 997 athletes competing, or 2.2 percent of the total. The modern Olympic Games began in Athens in 1896.

Women participated in tennis and golf, as well as team events such as sailing, croquet and equestrian sports in Paris.

Great Britain’s Charlotte Cooper was the first female individual gold medalist in singles.

Gender equality through the decades

Only 4.4% of athletes were women when Paris hosted the Olympic Games again exactly 100 years ago. In 1924, the “Chariots of Fire” Olympics, there were 135 women competing out of 3,089 athletes, according to the IOC study.

During the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, this percentage rose to 9.5%, four years later it fell to 8.4% in Berlin, and when the 1948 Summer Games were held in London, it was back to 9.5%.

The increase included a jump to 20.7% of female athletes in Montreal in 1976 and was close to 23% when the Games returned to Los Angeles in 1984. That was when rhythmic gymnastics and artistic swimming, then called synchronized swimming, made their debut.

The IOC has been pushing Olympic teams that traditionally sent only men to compete. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei first entered women at the 2012 London Olympics, where 44.2 percent of athletes competed in women’s events at the Games. The figure rose to 45 percent at Rio 2016 and reached 48 percent at the Tokyo Games, where teams were encouraged to select a man and a woman as flag bearers at the opening ceremony.

How did we get here?

The IOC has formally committed to “promoting gender equality” as part of a package of far-reaching reforms implemented in December 2014 by newly elected President Thomas Bach.

The IOC’s sports department worked with the governing bodies to eliminate some medal events for men and add more for women. The federations have since achieved more equality on the playing field for female athletes than they have for women in their own offices.

A 2020 study of the 31 sports governing bodies at the Tokyo Olympics found that only one governing body had 40% women and 18 governing bodies had a female representation of 25% or less.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games