Women are very much a part of the Olympic scene.Think of Fanny Blankers -Koen , Nadia Comaneci or Jessica Ennis . But it was not always so.
Women were banned from the ancient Olympic Games on pain of death. After all, men tended to compete naked.When the Olympics were restarted in 1868 there were no women and no naked men!
Modern Olympics founder , Baron Pierre de Coubertin thought that men were more athletic and that women were too weak. The 1900 Paris Olympics were the first Games where women competed. Great Britain's Charlotte Cooper became the first ever female gold medallist winning the ladies singles.By 1908 there were 36 women competing in the skating and tennis only.In 1936 there were just 4 sports events for women and in 1968 still only 6.
By 2008 over 4,000 women competed in 28 sports and over 100 individual events. What would Baron de Coubertin have thought as women now compete in the marathon, triathlon, weight-lifting, wrestling and shooting ?
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