Women in the Olympics

I chose to focus this blog on women in the Olympics. This history of women becoming involved in the Olympic Games is very interesting and I found a very informative website giving a timeline of important dates leading up to women in the Olympics. Through my research I found that women were not allowed to participate in the Olympic Games until 1900 in Paris. 19 women participated in these games and are marked as the first women Olympic competitors. These women were only given the option to compete in two categories, tennis and golf. The very first American woman Olympic medalist is Margaret Abbot in golf, this was the only year golf was played at the Olympics. Margaret’s award for winning was a bowl of Old Saxon porcelain mounted in chiseled gold. In 1904 archery had been added to the list that women could participate in so Lida Scott Howell took part in the games and won two gold medals taking the title of the first American woman Olympic gold medalist. Carrying on to more firsts for women in the Olympics takes us to 1924 Paris games where Helen Willis won a gold medal for singles and doubles in tennis and was the first woman to do so.
I find all of these women completely extraordinary and remarkable leaders of their time. They are the pioneers of women sport and competition and they were the first women to take leisure sport to the competitive level. It was these women that set the path for all other women athletes to come, particularly Olympic women athletes. I do find it amazing that women continually have to overcome obstacles in every line of work they do whether it is sports or in the office. The one thing that shocked me the most about this post was that women were participating in 1900, considering how long it took to a professional women’s basketball league to be created I would have assumed Olympics were out of the question until much more recently but I was pleased to find these dates. I loved reading about this topic and I learned a lot.