The great failure of the 2024 Paralympics

For many athletes, the 2024 Paralympic Games were the highlight of their careers, but in one area the Games still have a lot of work to do.

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were hailed as the first gender-equal Games in history, with an equal number of medals between men and women for the first time.

The International Olympic Committee set a goal of a 50-50 split between male and female athletes, and for the first time, women have an equal share with men of an entry quota (10,500 athletes across 329 sports). However, the Paralympics is some way behind that.

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Despite adding a women's category for the 50km race walk, sailing, and Greco-Roman wrestling at the Paris Olympics, the International Paralympic Committee is still way off achieving full gender equality.

According to the Paralympic website, of the 549 total medals available at the Paralympics, 235 are available for women, and 271 are available for men.

A 2024 Paris spokesperson told the Independent: "Paris 2024 has always had the ambition of increasing the number of women athletes at the Paralympic Games."

"As the organiser of one of the biggest sporting events in the world, Paris 2024 wanted to make the Games a showcase for greater gender equality in Paralympic sport."

Despite the medal disparity, the Games have strived to make the Paralympics more inclusive to women, with results showing an increase in women's and women's sports at the Games over the years.

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According to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), of the 4,461 athletes competing at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, 1,983 are women. That's twice as many as in Sydney in 2000 and more than the 1,846 female athletes in Tokyo.

The 235 medals available for women at the Paris Games was eight more than at the Tokyo Olympics and 28% more than at Athens 2004.

According to the Games spokesperson, "35 National Olympic Committee's (NOCs) (out of 169) have a record number of female athletes this year, while 27 NOCs have more female athletes than male. In 15 sports, there are more female athletes than in Tokyo 2020."

It's taken the Paralympic Games 64 years to achieve a 55%/45% split, but this progress seems slow with the media coverage and increasing popularity in sports for women. Will LA28 be the first to achieve equality in the Olympics and Paralympics?

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