Distribution of male and female athletes at the Summer Olympics 1896-2020
The share of male athletes at the Summer Olympics has always been greater than the share of female athletes. The first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 was exclusively for male competitors, and although some female events were introduced in Paris in 1900, the share of events was just 2.2 percent. Over the next century, the ratio of female to male events has gradually narrowed, and at a faster rate in recent decades, reaching almost 49 percent in Tokyo 2020. The Tokyo Games in particular saw the introduction of several mixed events, in an attempt to increase this participation further; these included mixed shooting events and both sprinting and swimming mixed relays.