It has been announced that the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will be the first to achieve numerical gender parity, consisting of the same number of male and female athletes participating in the competition.
Women competed for the first time at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. In a full circle moment, Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics in history to achieve numerical gender parity, with the same number of female and male athletes participating. 👏 pic.twitter.com/YspJ19FTno
— The Female Quotient (@femalequotient) November 8, 2023
"The Olympic Games are a rare occasion when female athletes can make the headlines as much as their male counterparts. We know that there are prime global broadcasting times at each edition of the Olympic Games. We have adjusted the schedule accordingly to ensure that a gender-balanced number of medal events and total competition hours take place during those time slots”, said Nawal El Moutawakel, a former Olympic Moroccan hurdler.
The Olympics had previously stated their intention to do this on March 8 2023, which marked International Women’s Day. In a statement published on the same day, the Olympics examined the progress made towards gender equality, listing parity related milestones at each Olympic games.
The International Olympic Committee has announced its commitments towards strengthening and accelerating gender equality at the Olympic Games and across the Olympic Movement by 2024.#GenerationEquality | #ActForEqual | #StrongerTogether | @GenEgaliteFRhttps://t.co/wfKjDzFu7r
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) July 6, 2021
The statement went further to explain how part of Paris 2024’s commitment to gender equality was working to rename sports facilities after women, of which only 1% in France are. Tony Estanguet, President of Paris 2024 backed this notion stating, “Because equality also involves visibility, the renaming of these sports facilities with women’s names is a key challenge.”
In a fitting full-circle moment, the gender parity that has been achieved for the Paris 2024 Olympics will also coincide with the celebration of women competing for the first time at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900.
