Summer Olympics: number of athletes by gender 1896-2024| Statista

The first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 saw just 241 athletes feature. During the event, exclusively male athletes took part. Over the next 125 years, the overall number of competitors gradually climbed, along with the number of female athletes taking part. During the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the number of female Olympians peaked at 5,457, however, the share of women taking part in the Olympics hit a record high during the Paris 2024 Games, when near parity was achieved.

Number of male and female athletes participating at the Summer Olympics from 1896 to 2024

Year	Men	Women
Athens 1896	241	0
Paris 1900	973	24
St. Louis 1904	645	6
London 1908	1,971	37
Stockholm 1912	2,359	48
Antwerp 1920	2,559	63
Paris 1924	2,953	135
Amsterdam 1928	2,606	277
Los Angeles 1932	1,208	126
Berlin 1936	3,632	331
London 1948	3,714	390
Helsinki 1952	4,436	519
Melbourne 1956	2,938	376
Rome 1960	4,727	611
Tokyo 1964	4,473	678
Mexico City 1968	4,735	781
Munich 1972	6,075	1,059
Montreal 1976	4,824	1,260
Moscow 1980	4,064	1,115
Los Angeles 1984	5,263	1,566
Seoul 1988	6,203	2,194
Barcelona 1992	6,652	2,704
Atlanta 1996	6,806	3,512
Sydney 2000	6,582	4,069
Athens 2004	6,296	4,329
Beijing 2008	6,305	4,637
London 2012	5,892	4,676
Rio 2016	6,179	5,059
Tokyo 2020	5,963	5,457
Paris 2024	5,414	5,300

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Release date

2025

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

1896 to 2025

Supplementary notes

This data was compiled from the linked report and with data from each individual event page on the official website for the Olympics. The linked source only provided the figure for the number of female competitors per tournament. Statista subtracted this from the overall number of athletes listed on each event's page.

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