On July 26 , 2021 , Team USA bather Katie Ledeckywon the atomic number 79 medalin the first - ever 1,500 - beat freestyle event for women . ( The manpower ’s event has been agree for decades . ) If you ’re surprised that Tokyo 2020 was the first Olympics to hold this race for women , you ’re not alone . Women have had to overcome many hurdle to compete in the Olympics and even today there are a few event that are still not unfastened to them .
When the modernistic Olympics begin in 1896 , no women were allowed to contend . In 1900 , they could competein only five events(tennis , navigation , croquet , equestrianism and golf ) . Today , char vie in just about every consequence andsince 1991 , any sport seeking to get together the Olympic course of study has to have fair sex ’s contention .
Still , there are a few summertime sports that currently only have men ’s divisions at the Olympic level . They include :
Greco - Romanic wrestling : Even though freestyle wrestling has men and women ’s segmentation , Greco - Roman grappling is presently open to men . Greco - Roman hand-to-hand struggle has been an Olympian mutant since 1896 ; matman utilise only their upper body and arms , while freestyle wrestlers can use any part of their body . In 2015 , the point of United World Wrestling sound out it was potential that womanhood ’s Greco - romish wrestle could be added after the Tokyo Olympics ; he mentioned that they had already started developing Greco - romish plan for womanhood .
Decathlon : The succeeder of this series of 10 track and field events over two Day ( 100 - meter , long jump , shot put , gamey jump and 400 - meter on day one , and 110 - meter hurdling , saucer , terminal vault , javelin and 1,500 - meter on day two ) is considered to be theworld ’s greatest jock . fair sex contend instead in the heptathlon , which is seven track and field events ( 100 - meter hurdles , gamy jump , shot put , 200 - metre sprint , prospicient jumping , javelin stroke and 800 - meter run ) over two days .
Some female athletes are campaigning to have a woman ’s decathlon at the Olympics , butnot all cleaning lady are on boardwith this . " Heptathletes are view primarily pep pill - oriented and decathletes more survival - oriented,“Shauna Farnell wrote for The New York Times . If the adult female ’s decathlon becomes a reality , it is likely the heptathlon would no longer exist at the Olympic degree .
One - person dinghy ( heavyweight ) - Finn : This man ’s event regard sailing a catboat , or khat - rigged sailboat , which is a sailing boat with its mast well forward on the gravy boat with a individual cruise . It ask a lot of brute speciality . U.S.A. argent medalist ( 2008 ) Zach Raineycalled it " a unfeigned test of power , endurance and mental strength . Anyone who has sailed a Finn in steep chop and 20 knots can evidence you just how physically heavy the boat is to sail … You have to be big and have the frame to build the force needed to sail the boat . "
50 - klick subspecies walking : At 31 geographical mile , this is the longest slipstream at the Olympics , but its want of distaff involution might be moot since it could be going away after 2021 . " It would appear , some at the IOC and World Athletics consider it miss the ' howler factor ' and would prefer to see the current major championship distances of 20 klick and 50 km shortened to what is akin to long distance sprinting , at least in walking terms : 10 km and 30km,“wrote Athletics Weekly . Women compete in this event for the first time at the2017 World Championships .
On the impudent side , there are two summer Olympics events that have only female agency .
Rhythmic gymnastics : Call this the " other gymnastics . " It feature elements of dance and acrobatics while the gymnasts handle props such as a ball , hoop , typewriter ribbon or rope . There are few men who participate in rhythmic gymnastics , although there are teams in Japan that incorporatemartial artistry into their routine .
Synchronized swim : Maybe its roots in " water ballet " discourages men from participating . A hilarious"SNL " videofrom the 1980s feature two manlike selsyn swimmers probably did n’t help matters either . But interestingly , synchronized swim was originally a male - only sport in the nineteenth century . " Contests were originally solely for men but it was shortly recognized that artistic swimming was good fitted to women who were overall more buoyant , in particular in the legs,“wrote the website British Swimming . An all - manlike British synchronized swim team petition to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics but was turned down . It ’s potential that the IOC could change by reversal its spatial relation in the future tense .
In late years , the IOC has increase the numbers ofmixed - gender events . For instance , mixed medley swim electrical relay and assorted runway relay , where team of two men and two women compete against each other are part of the Tokyo Olympics . Equestrian is one of the few Olympian sports where men and charwoman vie directly against each other .
