Key points from the chart
- The chart has one row for each Summer Olympic sport, 68 in all, and one column for each Games from 1896 to 2024, including the 1906 Games.
- Each square shows who competed in that sport at that Games: men only (light blue), women only (dark red) or both (salmon).
- The left side of the chart is mostly blue. By 2020 and 2024 no sport on the chart is men only.
- Some sports opened to women early: sailing, tennis, golf and croquet show both sexes in 1900, and swimming and diving from 1912.
- Others came late: football in 1996, weightlifting, water polo and modern pentathlon in 2000, wrestling in 2004 and boxing in 2012.
- Three entries are women only: rhythmic gymnastics and synchronised swimming from 1984, and softball from 1996 to 2008. Artistic swimming, the new name for synchronised swimming, is also dark red in 2020 and 2024.
Years are read from the chart, whose columns are labelled 1896 to 2024 along the bottom.
Gender participation in Olympic sports, the chart in text
Title: Gender Participation Across Sports in the Summer Olympic Games (1896-2024). Legend: Male and Female (salmon), Male Only (light blue), Female Only (dark red). Columns: 1896, 1900, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024.
The first year each long running sport shows a salmon (both sexes) square, read from the chart:
| Sport | First Games with both sexes on the chart |
|---|---|
| Sailing, Equestrian | 1900 (then men only again at some later Games; equestrian mixed at every Games from 1952) |
| Swimming, Diving | 1912 |
| Fencing | 1924 |
| Athletics, Gymnastics | 1928 |
| Shooting | 1968 |
| Rowing, Basketball | 1976 |
| Hockey | 1980 |
| Cycling | 1984 |
| Football | 1996 |
| Water Polo, Weightlifting, Modern Pentathlon | 2000 |
| Wrestling | 2004 |
| Boxing | 2012 |
Sports listed on the chart, top to bottom: Swimming, Athletics, Rowing, Fencing, Wrestling, Water Polo, Football, Diving, Cycling, Shooting, Sailing, Gymnastics, Weightlifting, Equestrian, Boxing, Modern Pentathlon, Hockey, Basketball, Canoeing, Archery, Tennis, Volleyball, Judo, Handball, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Table Tennis, Synchronized Swimming, Badminton, Beach Volleyball, Art Competitions, Taekwondo, Triathlon, Tug-Of-War, Baseball, Polo, Trampolining, Golf, Rugby, Softball, Rugby Sevens, Surfing, Skateboarding, Artistic Gymnastics, Trampoline Gymnastics, Artistic Swimming, Alpinism, Sport Climbing, Canoe Sprint, 3×3 Basketball, Cycling Track, Marathon Swimming, Lacrosse, Canoe Slalom, Cycling BMX Freestyle, Cycling BMX Racing, Cycling Mountain Bike, Cycling Road, Cricket, Croquet, Roque, Racquets, Basque Pelota, Baseball/Softball, Aeronautics, Jeu De Paume, Karate, Motorboating, Breaking.
The rows near the bottom are sports held only once or a few times. Racquets, Jeu De Paume and Aeronautics are men only. Motorboating in 1908 shows both sexes, as do Karate and Baseball/Softball in 2020 and Breaking in 2024.
Footer: Sources: Kaggle, “120 Years of Olympic History”, “Paris 2024 Total Medals Tally”, “2021 Tokyo Olympics Results”. Note: Some sports have been reclassified, e.g. Cycling was split into BMX, Road, and Mountain Biking. Visualization by distributionofthings.com using Python (Pandas and Matplotlib).
What the chart shows about women at the Olympics
The chart comes from “Olympic fever part I, More sports more women” by Gaël and Natascha of Distribution of Things, published on 25 August 2024 [1]. Their article says the first modern Olympics in 1896 had no female athletes, and that by Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 female participation approached parity with men [1]. It also notes that athletics, swimming and gymnastics have long been open to both sexes, while boxing, weightlifting and wrestling admitted women much later [1]. The chart makes that difference visible row by row.
Women first competed at the 1900 Games in Paris, where 22 women took part in sailing, tennis, croquet, equestrian events and golf [2]. That matches the salmon squares in the 1900 column for those sports. Paris 2024 was the first Games to set a goal of gender parity between men and women [2].
Why some rows stop and others start
Several rows end in 2016 and new ones begin in 2020. This is a naming change in the source data, as the chart’s own note explains. Cycling becomes Cycling Track, Road, BMX Freestyle, BMX Racing and Mountain Bike. Gymnastics becomes Artistic Gymnastics and Trampoline Gymnastics, and Canoeing becomes Canoe Sprint and Canoe Slalom. Synchronized Swimming becomes Artistic Swimming. These are continuations of the same sports, so a gap at 2016 does not mean the sport left the Games.
Art Competitions also appear. The creator’s article says they were part of the programme between 1912 and 1948 and covered painting, sculpture, architecture and literature [1].
Notes on this infographic
- A square shows whether men, women or both took part in a sport at a Games. It does not show how many athletes or events there were, so a salmon square can cover very unequal numbers of men’s and women’s events.
- The renamed sports in 2020 and 2024 (for example Cycling Road) appear as new rows, so some sports look newer than they are.
- The column for 1906 is the Intercalated Games, which the chart includes alongside the regular Summer Games.
- The first mixed years in the table above are our reading of the squares, not numbers printed on the chart.
Sources
- Distribution of Things (Gaël and Natascha), Olympic fever part I, More sports more women, 25 August 2024. The creator’s original post with this chart.
- Wikipedia, Participation of women in the Olympics.
Last reviewed 30 October 2026
