Women set to outnumber men for Team GB at next Olympics for first time
The British Olympic Association is watching to make history by choosing more women than men for the next 12 months’ Olympics, and the Guardian can monitor. With 500 days before the Tokyo Games, internal Team GB facts strongly suggest that female athletes will make up most of the squad for the first time.
Britain sent 164 women and 202 men as part of a 366-strong group for the Rio Olympics. However, a combination of factors, including substantial investment in girls’ sports, the electricity of the British girls’ soccer group, and the International Olympic Committee’s move closer to gender balance, means BOA chiefs are certain records could be made in Tokyo.
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The Team GB chef de mission, Mark England, told the Guardian that while most athletes still needed to qualify for their activities, their statistics, primarily based on global rankings and current performances, recommended that around 370 British athletes could be decided on—most of whom might be women.
“All symptoms are that it’s going to take place for the primary time, to be splendid,” he stated. “It speaks to the strength of the excessive-performance system and the funding that has been made nationwide governing our bodies over the past twenty years.
“They’re without a doubt has been a concerted attempt to consciousness interest on equality and possibility for all to make certain we send a crew this is reflective of a contemporary Britain.”
England – who also oversaw the athlete delegation in Rio, where Team GB became the first country to win new medals at the Games straight away after the website hosted a home Olympics – stated some other things became the excessive number of hit athletes in beyond Olympics that had recommended the current era.
“It is beautiful to look at the achievement of women that have come via our machine,” he delivered. “The energy and pedigree of these lady athletes have been awe-inspiring, and they were awesome position fashions for future generations.”
It also displays a trade-in emphasis from the IOC, whose president, Thomas Bach, has promised that the Tokyo Olympics would be “more youthful, extra-urban and encompass more women” as a part of plans to carry the Games in the direction of having a 50/50 representation of males and females.
Six global federations—canoeing, judo, rowing, sailing, taking pictures, and weightlifting—have shown they might move toward gender balance for the first time in Tokyo. At the same time, BMX racing, mountain biking, and freestyle wrestling will have the same number of disciplines for women and men.
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