It seems appropriate that the first gold medal awarded at the 2012 Olympic will be in the women’s 10m air rifle event, as the London Games marks a true milestone in the battle for sporting equality among the sexes.
For the first time in Olympic history, every country sending a team to London 2012 will feature at least one female athlete, while the addition of women’s boxing means both sexes will compete in every sport, if not every discipline.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei are all fielding at least one woman for the first time, with the Saudis in particular finally bowing to the quiet but persistent pressure of International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge.
“We have made a lot of progress in this field. In 1996 in Atlanta, 26 Olympic committees had no women,” said Rogge.
The IOC not only applied pressure through what Rogge calls “silent diplomacy”, it also supported young athletes through Olympic solidarity schemes, leaving just Brunei, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as the only countries without female representation at Beijing in 2008.
“It makes no sense starting discussions with people and making big announcements in the media. A good diplomacy is always a quiet diplomacy,” explained Rogge.
Participation in the ancient Olympic Games was limited to male athletes only, a policy that was followed at the first Olympics of the modern era in 1896. Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games but only in tennis and golf, while athletics and gymnastics debuted at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.
The number of women competing in London is at an all-time high of 4,847, with the US sending more female than male athletes for the first time. China has also sent more women than men to London.
US flag-bearer Mariel Zagunis believes women are finally being treated as equals in the world of Olympic sport. “The development of women in sport is huge,” she said.
Women made up 44 per cent of athletes at Beijing 2008 and Rogge has set the goal of gender equality sooner rather than later. “I believe that in the Olympic Games we are getting there. Between the next 10 and 20 years we will have 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women at the Games,” he said.
“I would summarise it in ‘congratulations’, but definitely I think they were happy with what has been achieved,” he said. “But they reminded us that there is still much more to do.”
