When women first competed at the Winter Olympics in 1924, they made up just 4.3% of total athletes and were limited to participating in figure skating. A century later, Milan-Cortina 2026 will be the most gender-balanced Winter Games in history.
The 2026 Games will mark the 25th edition of the Winter Olympics, and for the first time, women will account for 47% of all athletes, building on momentum from Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, where women represented 44.7% of competitors. While the increase of 2% from 2022 might be incremental, the Winter Olympics have come a long way since women were first invited in 1924. Since 1924, progress at the Winter Olympics has been slow but steady, shaped by deliberate expansions of opportunity over time. Milestones like the addition of women’s ice hockey in 1998, women’s bobsleigh in 2002, and women’s ski jumping in 2014 opened new doors, and now, women will compete in record numbers at the 2026 Games.
Of the 116 total events scheduled in Milan-Cortina, 50 will be women’s events and 12 will be mixed-gender events, meaning women will compete in a record 53% of all events. The increase is largely due to the addition of four brand new events for women, including freestyle skiing dual moguls, luge doubles, ski jumping large individual hill, and ski mountaineering sprint. Additionally, for the first time ever, women and men will compete over the same distances in cross-country skiing.
These changes reflect decades of intentional effort across the Olympic Movement to modernize the program and remove structural barriers for women athletes. Much of the progress at Milan-Cortina is the result of deliberate policy from the International Olympic Committee over the last decade to create gender balance and therefore promote equality. The Paris 2024 Summer Games served as a significant milestone as the first Summer Olympics to have the same number of female and male athletes competing. The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games are the IOC’s next move in their overall commitment to gender equality.
While progress has been slow and gaps certainly still exist, Milan-Cortina 2026 represents a meaningful step forward toward creating true gender parity in sports on one of the biggest stages.
MEET CAROLINE FITZGERALD
Caroline Fitzgerald is a contributing writer for TOGETHXR.com and a leading expert in women’s sports business and gender equity. A Sports Business Journal "2024 Power Player in Women's Sports," she covers the forces shaping the industry’s next era of growth.
