A Marathon, Not a Sprint: A Century of Women and the Olympics

When the men of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gathered in April 1919 to plan the upcoming Olympic games, the world was much different than when the last Olympics had been held in 1912. IOC members were eager to return to their athletic competition, which focused on the best amateur athletes in the world. These athletes, they believed, were primarily men. The first time the Olympics came to Paris in 1900, women had been allowed to compete in a small number of events, but the organizers of the Olympics saw women as an afterthought.

Just six months after the Great War’s end, the IOC focused on their plans for a 1920 Olympics. They did not stop to consider that women’s lives had changed drastically since the games began in 1896: Women had spent four years in the Great War doing any job that needed doing. They continued to fight for the right to vote in various countries. And women’s athletic clubs were forming across Europe and the United States. But the IOC wasn’t interested in a future that expanded women’s Olympic participation.

Women thought differently.

In 1919, Frenchwoman Alice Milliat had become the president of the Fédération des sociétés féminines sportives de France (the French Women’s Sport Federation, or FSFSF). Since 1911, women in France had been organizing sports clubs, creating opportunities for women to compete in soccer, bicycle racing, rugby, and, by 1917, track and field. There were also growing numbers of women in sports in the United States and England. Milliat argued that the Olympics needed to continue to expand women’s events, particularly to include track and field.

The world might have changed since the war, but the Olympic organizers did not share Milliat’s vision. Her request was denied.

If the Olympics would not include women’s track and field events, then it was time to create an international women’s competition. Over the next two years, Milliat worked with other women athletes and their supporters. As chair of the now-renamed Fédération feminine sportive de France, Milliat helped plan the 1921 Women’s Olympic Games in Monaco. Later that year, Milliat was also part of organizing the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale — the International Women’s Sports Federation (FSFI). Both organizations began their own plans for international women’s competitions. These would allow women the opportunity to compete at a higher level, prove their abilities to the world, and demonstrate that women deserved to be seen as athletes and be included in the official Olympic Games.

In 1922, two separate events allowed women to compete in international track and field competitions. Milliat and the FSFSF organized the Second Women’s Olympiad in Monaco, which took place from April 15-23, 1922, with 300 women participating from six different nations. On August 20, 1922, 77 women gathered in Paris for the one-day 1922 Women’s World Games. Thirteen American women participated, including 16-year-old Nancy Voorhees, who set a high jump record of 1.46 meters. Crowds of 20,000 people gathered to watch the events.

In 1923, the British Women’s Amateur Athletic Association held its own championships for British women, while the Amateur Athletic Union in the United States organized a competition for American women. The FSFSF’s Women’s Olympiad took place in Monaco once again in April 1923.

Meanwhile, the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games continued to allow women in select competitions. The 1924 Paris Olympic Games included 135 women, with 25 American women winning medals. Among them was Helen Wills, a tennis star who went on to win at Wimbledon eight times. (After the 1924 summer games, tennis disappeared from the Olympics until 1988.)

Just one week after the Paris Olympics ended, contestants for the 1924 Women’s Olympiad gathered at Chelsea Football Club’s Stamford Bridge stadium in England on August 4. Flags held aloft for the opening ceremony, the competitors marched around the track in shorts, oversized shirts, and headbands. Some wore skirts. They smiled for the camera, young women enjoying a day of friendly competition. When the starting guns sounded, they ran faster, jumped higher, and threw further than ever. They broke records in front of a crowd of more than 20,000 people. (In comparison, three months later, the King and Queen of England attended an exhibition match at Stamford Bridge, with the New York Giants playing the Chicago White Sox. Only 7,000 spectators came to see the American men play baseball.)

The 1924 Women’s Olympiad at Stamford Bridge (Uploaded to YouTube by BFI)

Plans continued for a 1926 Women’s World Games, organized by the FSFI. One hundred women from nine countries came to compete in 12 events. But just weeks before the Women’s World Games began, the FSFI received a proposal. The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), which worked with the IOC to organize the Olympics, had decided women could compete in track and field events at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games.

The 1928 Olympics brought 277 women to compete, and included five track and field events for women. A 16-year-old American athlete named Elizabeth Robinson achieved a world record for the 100-meter dash, finishing in 12.2 seconds. She went on to take silver with her team in the 400-meter women’s relay. American Lillian Copeland placed second in the women’s discus throw, while Mildred Olive Wiley placed third in the women’s high jump. American Florence MacDonald finished sixth in the 800-meter run, the fifth and final event open to women that year. Lina Radke of Germany set a world record in the 800-meter, but the organizers of the Olympics decided that the 800-meter was not an appropriate event for women, and removed it from future events. Women would not be allowed to run the 800-meter again until 1960.

It would take decades for women to gain access to a fuller array of Olympic competitions. In 1968, Mexican athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light an Olympic cauldron. The first women’s Olympic marathon was not held until the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where American runner Joan Benoit completed the course in two hours, 24 minutes, and 52 seconds. In 2012, women gained access to every sport in the Olympics, and it was the first time that every country participating brought women athletes.

The first time the Olympics came to Paris, just 22 women competed. The second time, in 1924, that number rose to 135. In 2024, approximately 5,000 women will compete in Paris. For the first time in Olympic history, organizers expect to see the same number of men and women competitors. More than a century after women were denied the chance to run in Paris, and four decades after the first women’s Olympic marathon, the women’s marathon will close out the 2024 Paris Olympics. This year, women will take the final steps across the Olympics finish line, continuing the legacy that Alice Millat and many others began working toward so long ago.