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No Women Olympics

No Women Allowed: How Women Were Shut Out of the First Modern Olympics

Women and the early modern Olympic Games

There were no women at the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896. Around 240 athletes from 14 nations competed, and every one of them was a man. Women first took part four years later, at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Why were women excluded?

The founder of the modern Games, Pierre de Coubertin, was openly opposed to women competing. He believed the Olympics should celebrate male athleticism, and that women's role in sport was to applaud the winners. The 1896 organizers followed his lead.

The woman who ran anyway

Women were officially barred, but one refused to accept it. Stamata Revithi, a Greek woman, asked to run the 1896 marathon and was turned down. The day after the men's race, she ran the marathon course on her own, reportedly finishing in about five and a half hours. She was not allowed to enter the stadium, and her run was never officially recorded.

1900, Paris: the first women Olympians

In 1900, 22 women competed among nearly 1,000 athletes, in tennis, golf, sailing, croquet and equestrian events. Several of them made history:

  • Hélène de Pourtalès (Switzerland) won gold in sailing, and is widely recognized as the first woman to win an Olympic title.
  • Charlotte Cooper (Great Britain) won the tennis singles, becoming the first female individual Olympic champion.
  • Margaret Abbott (USA) won the golf event. She reportedly never realized she had competed in the Olympics.

A long road to equality

Progress was slow. Women's track and field only joined the program in 1928. In 1991 the IOC required every new sport to include women's events. London 2012 was the first Games in which every sport had female competitors and every participating nation sent at least one woman. Paris 2024 became the first Games to reach gender parity, with an equal number of male and female athletes.

From zero women in 1896 to half of all athletes in 2024, the story shows how far the Games have come, and how recently.

Sources: International Olympic Committee, Olympedia.

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