Quotas requiring equal numbers of female and male athletes this year delivered a Summer Games closer to gender parity than any other Olympics in history.
Avni Shah
The International Olympic Committee’s emphasis on balancing its medal opportunities and participant list by gender creates an undeniable win for female athletes. They weren’t even allowed to participate in the first Olympics in 1896 and represented just 2.2% of the total athletes in 1900, when they were finally “included” — in tennis, golf and a few other “ladylike” sports. This year’s games had close to 50% female competitors, which means more women have participated than ever before.
