There have been tons of moments to recollect from Paris 2024, however one factor that caught out to us? Ladies athletes had been performing some actually superb issues at these Video games. Working example: Out of the 126 whole Olympic medals received by Workforce USA athletes, greater than half of them—67—had been earned by feminine athletes. In reality, that quantity would have positioned them third amongst all nations within the medal desk.
What’s extra, Workforce USA, the biggest workforce to compete, despatched extra girls than males to the Olympics for the fourth consecutive Video games (315 girls in comparison with 279), in keeping with Census.gov.
And it wasn’t simply with Workforce USA athletes, both. Main as much as this yr’s Video games, the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) made a concerted effort to attain gender parity by rising the variety of gender-equal and mixed-gender occasions (together with combined relays in monitor and swimming). In accordance with the IOC, this yr marked the primary video games with equal numbers of female and male members.
Lots of of feminine athletes from all over the world confirmed gorgeous velocity, energy, talent, and extra on the world stage. Listed here are simply 10 of the methods girls made historical past on the Paris Video games.
1. Lauren Scruggs turns into the primary Black American medalist in girls’s particular person fencing.
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Workforce USA’s Lauren Scruggs, a 21-year-old Harvard scholar, broke obstacles with a silver-medal end in particular person foil in Paris. “Rising up in fencing, nobody actually regarded like me,” she stated in an interview with ABC Information. “My success has helped break stereotypes about what Black individuals can do and who generally is a fencer.” Scruggs additionally teaches fencing to underrepresented youngsters by way of the Peter Westbrook Basis and stated, “I am not simply fencing for myself, however I am fencing for the youngsters again residence too.”
