The Paris Olympics begin this Friday, and we’re so excited to see some of our favourite female athletes kick ass and win medals. We’ll be seeing familiar faces such as all-time great gymnast Simone Biles and 2023 Women’s World Cup winner Olga Carmona.
We’ll also see some new faces, like the young climber Oriane Bertone, who has been discussed as one to watch out for. The Paris Olympics are important because, for the first time ever, half of the athletes competing are women. It only took 128 years! Yay!
Anyway, it hasn’t always been this easy for women in the Olympics, so we thought we’d pay homage to the amazing women of history who paved the way and allowed us to get to where we’re at now.
Hélène de Pourtalès and Charlotte Cooper
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The first time women were allowed to compete in the Olympics was in 1900 in Paris. That year, 22 female athletes competed in fields limited to tennis, sailing, croquet, horseback riding and golf. Countess Hélène de Pourtalès was a Swiss sailor and represented her country in the sailing competition, and when her team won, she became the first woman to ever win an Olympic gold medal.
Charlotte Cooper, an English tennis player, was another female contestant that year, and she became the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual competition.
Alice Coachman
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At the London Summer Olympics in 1946, twenty three year old Alice Coachman set the Olympic high jump record and earned the title of the first ever African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. This immense achievement was set against the backdrop of an extremely segregated and racist USA, making it an act of defiance that deserves its spot in the history books.
Nawal El-Moutawakel
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At the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, Moroccan athlete Nawal El-Moutawakel, who was the only female athlete in Morocco’s entire delegation, completed the women’s 400-metre hurdles event in exactly 54 seconds, dubbing her the first Arab and Muslim woman to win Olympic gold.
She later became the first Muslim woman elected to the International Olympic Committee’s executive board. She continues to inspire female athletes in the Middle East and all over the world.
Fu Yuanhui
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Although Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui won a bronze medal in the 100-metre backstroke at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, she made history in the world of female athletics when she responded to questions about her bad performance in the 4×100 mixed relay final.
She candidly explained that her performance was hindered by the fact that she was on her period. “Actually, my period started last night. So I’m feeling pretty weak and really tired.” This answer might seem like nothing special, but her straightforwardness helped break the stigma around female athletics and menstruation, a topic that is particularly taboo in China.
Simone Biles
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably already know that 27 year old Simone Biles is officially the most decorated gymnast in history. The American gymnast holds the records for the most World Championship medals, 30, and the most World Championship gold medals in history for an athlete of either sex, which is 23.
Simone has also shown the world that it is possible to be one of the greatest athletes of all time and also put your mental health first. She withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 for psychological reasons, saying “We also have to focus on ourselves, because at the end of the day, we’re human too.” What a woman.
Momiji Nishiya
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The 2020 Tokyo Olympics introduced the new category of street skateboarding, and at just 13 years old, Japanese Momiji Nishiya made history and became the first ever to win gold in street skateboarding. Four years later, Momiji is making her return at Paris, and has no intentions of putting the skateboard down anytime soon.