Breathe
By Rosa Covarrubias
If Paris 2024 set the standard for parity of female and male participants in the Olympic Games, 50-50, Los Angeles 2028 will be historic in terms of gender.
By 2028, 132 years of modern Olympic history will have passed. We will have to wait more than a century for women to have greater participation in the Olympic Games, a milestone that will undoubtedly continue to lead the way in world sport.
The organizing committee of the upcoming summer competition announced that for the first time in history, of the 10,500 athletes participating in the event, 50.7% will be women and 49.3% men.
This change did not happen overnight and it is not a coincidence, but a causality. For more than a century, women in sports have fought, first, to be seen; they made their way with talent, through struggle, courage and the resilience that characterizes us, creating spaces to practice a discipline and gaining ground thanks to the fact that they were breaking down myths and doors that prevented them from accessing their dreams.
For the first time since 1996, when women's soccer appeared on the Olympic Games calendar, there will be more women's teams than men's teams in the summer competition, as of 2028, with 16 teams seeking Olympic glory, while the number of men's teams will be reduced to 12.
Women made their appearance in the Olympic water polo tournament in 2000, there were only 6 teams, compared to 12 men's teams, four years later, in Athens, 2 women's teams were added. By Tokyo 2020, parity was approaching, 10 women's teams competed in water polo and by 2028, there will be 12 teams, the same number for men and women.
Gender equity is not just a number. It implies access, visibility, resources and recognition. It implies that the girls of the world can see themselves reflected in an Olympic champion and dream of being there, on the track, on the tatami, on the court. It implies that the federations and committees not only allow, but promote the presence of women, not only to fulfill a quota, but out of conviction.
Subscribe to read the full column...
