At the first modern Olympic Games, held in 1896 in Athens, there wasn't a single female competitor. When the 2020 Games kick off in Tokyo this month, nearly half of the athletes competing will be women.
and as scandals involving the abuse and harassment of female athletes continue to plague sports globally., run Friday through Aug. 8 -- the International Olympic Committee has been working toward achieving more gender equity in terms of athlete quotas and event programming.
Some events have been dropped for men and added for women in boxing, canoe slalom and rowing, and two more women's teams will compete in water polo in Tokyo than in Rio, for 10 women's teams and 12 men's teams total. In swimming, the 1,500-meter freestyle -- an event only men previously competed in at the Olympics -- has also been added for women.
The International Judo Federation had pushed to add a mixed-team event, with three men and three women on each team, to the Olympics"for years," the organization's spokesman, Nicolas Messner, told ABC News. "It's not just about having the athletes on the field of play, it's also finding the best positions in the schedule to promote those events as well," he said."Generally speaking, the coverage of women's sports is very low, and I think the Olympics is often the exception to that," Sarah Axelson, vice president of advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation, told ABC News.
Basketball, soccer and softball are other sports that have benefited from an Olympic profile, according to Cheryl Cooky, a professor of women's, gender and sexuality studies at Purdue University, an editor of Sociology of Sport Journal and the co-author of"No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport, and the Unevenness of Social Change."
For Tokyo, the Paralympic Games will have at least 40.5% female athletes, up from 38.6% at Rio in 2016.
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