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 AUGUST 17, 2004 Athens Olympics Includes Two New Women's Sports Two new women's sports have been added to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, where women will compete in more than two dozen sports in all. The new women's sports include freestyle wrestling, which has been contested internationally for 20 years, and women's sabre, in which fencers can score hits with any part of the blade. That's quite a difference from the 1900 Olympics, when women were allowed to participate in only two sports (golf and tennis). In the early 1990s, the International Olympic Committee made a commitment that new sports must include women as a way for women's participation to reach that of men's. The Athens 2004 U.S. Olympic team has almost as many women as men - 257 women, 274 men. Women's Olympics success often translates into opportunities for competition and healthy activity at all athletic levels. When American girls and women see these top athletes compete, they want to become involved, too. The Olympics sends a signal that it's okay for women to lift weights, if even just to become stronger, not to compete. Women don't have to be put off by guys in the gym. The Olympics helps to verify that. Donna Lopiano, former executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, says that the new Olympic competitions "are extremely significant for women who have never seen highly skilled female athletes compete in traditional male sports. This sends a clear signal that women's participation in non-traditional sports is fine. It's like advertising to the world that women can do anything." |
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