For the first time in Olympic history, at Paris 2024 Team GB has more women athletes than men representing the four countries of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the games will have 155 male athletes and 172 female athletes representing Great Britain – a fact that is all the more fitting, given that it was at the Paris Olympics in 1900 that women were allowed to compete for the first time.
And it’s about time. Women’s sports across the board have come to the forefront in the past few years – who can forget that history-making win at the Women’s Euros – and while this year’s Olympics is undeniably a milestone for women in sport, it has served to highlight the fact that science isn’t keeping up. There’s a huge disparity in research into how female bodies perform best, as it’s estimated that a mere 6% of all research performed on endurance athletes has been done on women.
