This year’s Olympics is the first where gender parity has been achieved on the field of play – 124 years after women were first allowed to compete.
Although the average Olympic team is evenly split between men and women, Africa has the lowest representation of women of all the continents, with women comprising only 44% of the average team.
There are, however, notable exceptions. Countries such as Angola, Cameroon, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone and Zambia are sending teams where women make up two-thirds of the athletes. Guinea-Bissau and Somalia will have no female competitors in Paris.
There was a spike in female participation at the Games in 1928, when women could compete in athletics and gymnastics. Since 1991, the Olympic Committee mandated that all new codes that apply for recognition must have female competitors.
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