The President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, said that the organization has achieved gender balance in the number of participants in the Paris-2024 Summer Olympic Games, and achieved full equality in this field. But where is this issue among the Olympians of Azerbaijan?
Idman.biz examined the situation in this field by considering Azerbaijani participation in the previous Olympics, in addition to the multi-sport competition in the French capital.
If the IOC was able to create complete equality among Olympians by appropriate decisions, the number of male and female athletes of the countries is only a matter of their results. There is no specific number limit for male and female athletes in the countries, their opportunities can be increased simply by paying attention to women's sports.
Out of the 48 athletes of Azerbaijan who won a license to Paris, 28 are men and 20 are women. As you can see, the difference is not very big, although it is not exactly equal. Azerbaijani male athletes make up 58.33 percent, and women make up 41.67 percent.
Azeebaijan teams played a big role in the number of female athletes reaching 20. Each of Azerbaijani two teams that will go to Paris consists of women. Azerbaijani rhythmic gymnastics group has 5 members, and Azerbaijani basketball team has 4 members.
Boxing, wrestling and judo were the reasons for the numerical superiority of Azerbaijani male athletes. All 5 of Azerbaijani boxers are men. Only 1 out of 12 wrestlers, 2 out of 9 judokas are women.
In the sports where we have a large number of participants, women have 100 percent in gymnastics (7 people) and basketball (4 people). In badminton and swimming, there is a tie - 1 man, 1 woman. Azerbaijani only representative in 4 species is female, in 3 species it is male.
If we look at the previous Olympics in which the Azerbaijani team participated, the difference in the first three was noticeably large. Only 3 of Azerbaijani 23 athletes in Atlanta were women. Although the number of women in Sydney and Athens has doubled to 6, the comparison with 25 and 31 male athletes respectively shows that the situation has not changed much.
There has been significant progress in this field since Beijing. Thanks to 8 gymnasts, Azerbaijani 14-member female team that went to China made up 31.82 percent of Azerbaijani 44 athletes, which remained the highest figure until Tokyo. 15 out of 53 athletes in London and 14 out of 56 in Rio were women. 28 male and 16 female representatives competed in Tokyo. Here the percentage ratio was 63.64 to 36.36.
At the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which will start at 21:30 Baku time on July 26, Azerbaijani tricolor flag will be carried by Azerbaijani male boxer Mahammad Abdullayev, as well as Azerbaijani female judoka Gultaj Mammadaliyeva.
Vugar Mammadov,
Idman.biz
