Tokyo Olympics highlight both strides and remaining hurdles in gender equality

iStock/CHUNYIP WONG

(TOKYO) — 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.

Tokyo marks a “turning point” for the elite international sporting competition as the most gender-equal Olympics in the games’ history, organizers said, with women accounting for nearly 49% of the 11,090 athletes. That’s up from 45% at the last games in 2016 in Rio, 23% at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, 13.2% at the 1964 Games in Tokyo, and 2.2%