Almost equal number of male and female athletes at Olympics; Nothing new for TeamNL

This year, there will be almost an equal number of male and female athletes participating in the Summer Olympics in Paris. The organizers have been broadcasting this fact far and wide. But that is nothing new for TeamNL, director of top sports André Cats told RTL Nieuws.

TeamNL consists of 164 women and 112 men for the Paris games this year. That’s 59 percent women - the same percentage as at the previous Summer Olympics in Tokyo. “For us, this is nothing more than normal,” Cats told the broadcaster. “It’s not really a topic that we are concerned with anymore. They are all top athletes - men, women, and there are even mixed events.”

Of the 10,500 athletes who will participate in the Olympic Games in Paris, 51 percent are men and 49 percent are women. There will also be an almost equal number of medal ceremonies—152 for women and 157 for men. Twenty mixed-gender events will ensure that more than half of all medal events in Paris 2024 are open to female athletes.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach called gender equality at the Olympic Games in Paris one of the most important moments in the history of women in the Olympics and in sports in general. “We look forward to Paris 2024, where we will see the results of the tremendous efforts of the Olympic movement and women pioneers come to life,” he said.