A hundred years after Paris last hosted the Games, when 135 women and 2,954 men competed, the 2024 Olympics will be the first to feature an equal distribution of quota places between female and male athletes. This historic milestone is the result of a century of relentless advocacy and struggle for gender equality in sports, a legacy that future generations must continue to uphold.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will be a landmark moment in sports history, as it will host 10,500 athletes, with just as many women as men for the first time ever. Each of the 32 Olympic disciplines will achieve gender parity, with 5,250 slots allocated to women and an equivalent number to men. This landmark achievement represents the culmination of a century-long effort to ensure equal representation for women in the Games.
Eighty-year-old Billie Jean King, who was instrumental in the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 50 years ago, expressed her gratitude for witnessing the progress she and her courageous peers fought for, establishing tennis as the first truly global professional sports tour for women.
“Finally, we’re looked at as an investment, not a charity,” King said in an interview with Reuters. “It’s a totally different ballgame now,” the tennis legend remarked, while also expressing sadness that not all of her contemporaries lived to see the heights women’s sports have now reached.
The American 12-time Grand Slam singles champion also pointed out that the Paralympic competition still has some way to go to achieve the desired equality, as it is projected to have a spot allocation of approximately 55% for men and 45% for women in Paris.
The Olympic tennis event is scheduled for the first week of the Olympics, from Saturday, July 27 to Sunday, August 4, with medal rounds beginning on Friday, August 2. The matches will be held at Roland Garros, marking the first Olympic tennis event played on clay since Barcelona 1992.
The Olympic Tennis Event will feature five distinct categories: women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles, with 64 players in each singles event, 32 teams in each doubles event, and 16 teams in the mixed doubles event.
In the singles events, the reigning Olympic medalists include Gold medalist Belinda Bencic from Switzerland, who is currently on maternity leave, Silver medalist Marketa Vondrousova from the Czech Republic, and Bronze medalist Elina Svitolina from Ukraine.
In the doubles events, the Gold medal was claimed by the Czech team of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova. The Silver medal went to the Swiss duo Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic, while the Brazilian pair Laura Pigossi and Luisa Stefani took home the Bronze medal.
For the mixed doubles, the Russian team of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Andrey Rublev won the Gold medal. The Silver medal was awarded to another Russian duo, Elena Vesnina and Aslan Karatsev, and the Bronze medal went to Australians Ashleigh Barty and John Peers.
