Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Olympics
Ryan Smart
The Paris 2024 Olympics will see a unique piece of history being made for the first time ever.
The opening ceremony for this year's Games takes place on Friday evening, though as is tradition, events will take place in the days prior to ensure they are completed in time for the closing ceremony.
After Tokyo 2020 permitted limited to no spectators due to Covid-19, the Paris Olympics will see a return to full capacity crowds.
Breaking, meanwhile, will make its debut as a new sport at the Games, while a range of sports that debuted in Tokyo, including skateboarding, 3x3 basketball and freestyle BMX, will return.
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But there will be another crucial piece of history made by the athletes at this year's Olympics that has never been since in the history of the modern Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in March that they would distribute available places for athletes at a 50:50 scale for men and women.
The participation of women, as a percentage of all competitors, has risen in each staging of the Olympics since London 1948, when only 8.5 per cent of the competitors were female.
By London 2012, that number had risen to 44.2 percent of all competitors.
A total of 28 of the 32 sports in Paris are fully gender equal, the IOC say. One of the events that has traditionally only been open to men is the 10-event decathlon, with women competing in the seven-event heptathlon instead.
Speaking ahead of the Olympics, IOC president Thomas Bach said: "We are about to celebrate one of the most important in the history of women at the Olympic Games, and in the sport overall.
"We are looking forward to Paris 2024, where we will see the results of the enormous efforts made by the Olympic Movement and female trailblazers come to life. This is our contribution to a more gender-equal world."