Paris 2024: How the first Olympics to achieve complete gender parity will affect the future of women’s sport

Paris 2024 is set to make history.

It will become the first ever Olympic Games to feature the exact same number of male and female athletes.

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The journey to 50/50 participation has taken over a century[/caption]

And talkSPORT will be bringing you exciting coverage from all the best bits of the Games this summer.

The historic achievement of gender equality has been enshrined as a mission within the Olympic Charter since 1996.

After being entirely absent from the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, women numbered just 22 at the Paris Games in 1900.

Since then, groundbreaking female athletes including MMA star Rounda Rousey, tennis legend Martina Navratilova and gymnast Simone Biles have all contributed as women’s events have risen to greater recognition both in and out of the Olympics.

At the last Olympic Games in 2021 in Tokyo, 48.7 per cent of athletes were women and now the final step to complete equality has been taken.

Over a century after women made their debut in the Games, the event will return to Paris having come on leaps and bounds.

Of the 10,500 athletes who will compete at Paris 2024, there will be the same number of male and female athletes for the first time in Olympic history.

The International Olympic Committee has been committed to working towards gender equality at the Games, a goal which goes beyond the achievement of 50/50 participation.

In 2017,  they established their Gender Equality Review Project which was tasked with investigating the current gender balance in the Olympics and with devising an actionable strategy.

The recommendations set out in the report continue to be monitored by the IOC as they continue to implement measures to drive forward gender equality at the Olympic Games in every possible way.

Marie Sallois is the Director of Strategic and Corporate Development at the International Olympic Committee, a role which puts her in charge of gender equality.

She told talkSPORT that this achievement was the culmination of many decades of work by the IOC. 

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She said: “This project is part of our gender equality journey that obviously dates back to 1900 when women first competed in the Olympic Games. 

“And you had different stages: you had a first stage of acceleration in the ‘90s where we started with the first working group on women in sport, and we strengthened gender equality as part of the Olympic Charter and the first woman entered the executive board. 

“Then you had the second wave of acceleration as part of a new strategic roadmap, Olympic Agenda 2020.”

Sallois also spoke about why equal gender participation amongst athletes was so crucial: “If we have 50 per cent women participating in the games, we create not only role models in sport, but beyond sports.

“We reach billions of people that in different capacities will be inspired to join sport, but also to take on responsibilities in different fields.”

The future of gender equality in the Olympics

The IOC recognises that there is much more to be done.

They also recognise that it is not just within the pool of athletes that greater equality needs to be nurtured.

Sallois highlighted how the IOC was committed to fostering opportunities across all aspects of sports to ensure female participation growth universally.

She said: “We have also prepared the pipelines to increase the number of women in other roles. And here as we speak, we continue to push.

“We know, for instance, that among technical officials in Tokyo, we had 30 per cent woman. We want to push further and we are expecting several international federations of sport to reach parity in Paris.”

She added: “We know that we still have some room for improvement with coaches because we have only reached 12 per cent or 10 per cent (female coaches at the elite level at the Olympic Games).

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“So we are really working hard to have support mechanisms, for instance, providing dedicated programs to train women to become coaches.”

Even within the IOC itself, the organisation have committed to establishing greater gender equality within their own ranks: their objective of reaching 30 per cent female membership across their board has been reached.

For Sallois, it is the sheer power and reach of the Olympic Games that makes it so much more crucial that diversity is celebrated in every way on its stage.

“The Olympics is all about emotions, and emotions change you, ” she said.

And the IOC take their responsibility to make sure that they are constantly working towards change for the better seriously.

She said:  “It’s not just talking to women, it’s actually talking to the entire society for change to happen. And that’s really critical for me that we achieve that too.”

What next?

50/50 participation is a huge step forward – but the focus now turns to what must come next.

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Paul Scholes’ daughter Alicia has seen success with the England Roses Netball team – but has never had the chance to go to the Olympics[/caption]

Equality goes beyond numerical parity and much more remains to be done before the goal is reached.

Nowhere is this more highlighted than in the case of the most-played female sport in the UK: netball.

Despite numerous campaigns for its inclusion, netball has never been included in the Olympic agenda.

The International Netball Federation (INF) estimates that more than 20 million people play netball worldwide, but the sport has never featured at the largest global multi-sporting event of all time.

And it is possible that the Olympic inclusion of a sport that engages so many women could become a reality in the next few years.

Dame Liz Nicholl, the President of World Netball told talkSPORT that Olympic inclusion was something they were working towards.

She said: “In 2021 World Netball announced our intention to work with Netball Australia to make a compelling case for inclusion in the Olympic Games.

“It is an ambition of our members. Obviously, every member nation would love to be included in the Olympics.

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England’s Lionesses threw away their chance for Olympic qualification in the Nations League[/caption]

And when the Olympics travels to Brisbane in 2032, there are huge hopes that netball-loving nation Australia could introduce netball as their exhibition sport.

Nicholl added: “If ever there’s going to be an opportunity, it will be when there’s a very strong netball country that hosts the event.”

Nicholl admitted that while Olympic inclusion would be exceptional for the sport, it was important that it did not take away from the long-term development of the sport – especially given that its Olympic feature could well end up being temporary.

She said: “We won’t be investing anything outside of our agreed strategy, so if that takes us closer to the possibility of inclusion then that would be absolutely fantastic. But we won’t deviate from what is good for netball on this journey.”

The financial impact of Olympic inclusion of netball on women’s sport would be significant, and this in turn would contribute to the rising status of women’s sport.

And it is not just the inclusion of hitherto unseen sports at the Olympics that could boost gender equality goals.

Even sports which are included in the Olympics often find their female-events are not conducted in the same way as the men’s events.

For example, while 16 teams compete in the men’s football competition at the Olympics, only 12 compete in the women’s edition.

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It is a format which may have contributed to England’s Lionesses losing out on the opportunity to compete in this year’s competition at Paris 2024.