Paris Olympic competition nears total gender parity

Equal number of male and female athletes set to compete at Paris 2024 Olympics. Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, with 11,420 athletes, holds the record for the most participants in Olympic history, while Paris 2024 will be recorded as the 8th Olympics with over 10,000 athletes, with a total participation of 10,500. Pic: Getty Images

The founder of the modern Olympics and former IOC president, Pierre de Coubertin, once said women competing in the Games would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and improper.” 

Over a century later, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are targeting gender parity in the same city where women made their Olympic debut in 1900.