The IOC Reforms: Women on the Move

"The role of the women during the Olympic Games is to applaud and honour the male medal winner"

Those words were announced one hundred years ago by the founder of the International Olympic Committee, Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

Even as late as in the IOC session in Lausanne in 1929 the Swedish IOC member Sigfried Edstrøm declared that according to his oponion women shall have no right to compete in the Olympic Games.

The title of my speech today is Women on the move. Are women really on the move today in the Olympic Movement.

First of all I want to take you back in the history so we can see what has happened in the Olympic Movement from 1894 until today 2002.

I will start with the easiest part Women taking part in the Olympic competitions.

At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens 1896 there where no women competitors but already in Paris in 1900 there were 15 participants from 5 countries competing in tennis and golf.

Women like men are fighters and the progress of sports for women and sports on the Olympic program has constantly been growing. From 15 women in the two sports 1900 till Sydney 2000 where 4263 women took part in the 25 sports with 118 women events at our 300 events in total. That mean 39 %. The only individual sports where women did not take part in Sydney was boxing and wrestling.

At the Olympic Games in Athens women wrestling has been included on the programme. And we can also some increase in the other parts of the programme like:

• Increase from 6-8 teams Waterpolo

• Increase from 8-10 teams Women soccer

• Increase from 24-32 participants Modern pentathlon

• Include wrestling freestyle New event for women

The total amount of participating countries in Sydney were 199. Only 9 of them did not have women participation to be compared with 4 years earlier where 26 countries did not have women participants.

The countries without female participants in Sydney were:

Botswana, Lybia, British virgin Islands, Brunei, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirats.

The Sydney Games marked an important milestone in the achievement of women in sport. Many "first" occurred on this occasion. Let me mention a few:

• 54 teams were lead by women carrying their national flag at the opening ceremony.

• Australian hockey star Rachael Hawk was given the Honour of pronouncing the Olympic oath if behalf of the athletes.

• The torch relay became a celebration of womens participation.

• Birgit Fisher won two gold medals in canoeing to become the first woman in any sport to win medals in 20 years apart.

• In weightlifting two record were set when Maria Isabel Urrita took Colombias first ever medal in the Olympic Games and Karnam Malleswari from India tiik a bronze and became the first woman to win a medal for India.

• Sri Lanka won its first women medal when 200 m specialist Jayasinghe took the bronze.

• Two women from Bahrain were the first women athletes from an Arab Gulf country to compete in the Games.

So on the competition side of the Olympic Games I can really say that women are on the move.

But still the reachability of sport for girls and women is largely determined by the position of women within a given society, and that they are still underrepresented in the countries where low economic development, cultural traditions and religious framework limit their movement and their freedom to choose. Access to basic education is often still restricted for many girl and women in countries where they are given other priorities.

However and this is not only for the Olympic Movement many women choose to become increasingly involved in the sports world, either going against the norms of their society or conforming with them.

But both approaches are symbols and models for many girls and women, who see these actions as an encouragement to take the same path and make a contribution, however modest, to their longer-term emancipation. Also increased financial security, access to the credit, and possibility to manage time constraints are slowly helping women to take one step forward. As a consequence there is an interdependent link between socio-economic development and increased sport participation, between poverty and gender equality.

Yes I can say that women are really on the move in the sporting world but unfortunately I can not say that the progress on the field of play has led to a similar and parallel development within sports leadership and administration.

Coming back to the International Olympic Committee the issue of women leadership was brought up as late as in 1968 when the French IOC member Jean de Beaumont made a proposal at the session in Mexico. Could it be possible to elect women as IOC members???

He did not succeed and the issue was forgotten until 1973 when the tripartite commission started that "gradually it should be possible to consider feminine members". No positive reaction came out of this proposal.

The question came up again in 1976 but was very quickly killed and then in 1977 another French IOC member raised the issue again at the session in Prag, but was unsuccessful.

Not until 1981 the first women members were elected into the IOC namely Flor Isava Fonseca from Venezuela and Pirjo Hggman from Finland.

It took IOC 87 years to allow women as members. The strange thing is, that it is nothing at all mentioned in the Olympic Charter before 1980, that the women could not become members.

20 years after the first election of a woman member, the amount of women in IOC is today 12. We cannot say that the recruition of female members has been very successful.

The very positive thing is, that in IOC Athletes Commission we have 7 women members out of a total of 19 members. 4 of them are today also IOC members.

The 7 women athletes are:

• Lee Kyng Chun, South Korea, shorttrack

• Charmaine Crooks, Canada, athletics

• Yaping Deng, China, table tennis

• Manuela di Centa, Italy, cross-country skiing

• Rani Elwani, Egypt, swimming

• Mireya Luis Hernandez, Cuba, volleyball

• Pernilla Wiberg, Sweden, skiing

The 12 female members of IOC today are:

• Princess Nora of Lichtenstein 1984 Former President, NO NOC

• Anita de Frantz, USA 1986 Bronze rowing 1976

• HRH Princess Royal Great Britain 1988 Hon president NOC, Olympic participant, 1976 equestrian

• Gunilla Lindberg, Sweden 1996 NOC Secretary General, 17 Olympic Games

• Donna Pilar de Bourbon, Spain 1996 President IF, Equestrian

• Nawal El Moutawakel, Marokko 1998 Olympic gold Los Angeles, 1984, athletics

• Irena Szewinska, Poland 1998 5 Olympic Games, 5 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze, athletics

• Charmaine Crooks, Canada 1999, 4 Olympic Games, Silver Los Angeles 1984, Athletics

• Manuela di Centa, Italy 1999 4 Olympic Games, Cross-country skiing, 2 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze

• Susie ONeill, Australia 2000 3 Olympic Games, Swimming, 2 gold, 4 Silver, 2 bronze

• Els van Breda Vriesman, Netherlands 2001 President IF, Field hockey

• Pernilla Wiberg, Sweden 2002 4 Olympic Games, Alpine skiing, 2 gold, 1 silver

After the Centennial Congress in Paris 1994, a resolution was taken that all the involved organisations in sport, IOC, IF and NOCs by the year 2000 should have at least 10% women members and by the year 2005 at least 20%. Today we can see from the statistics, that 66% of the NOCs have reached the target and that 27 IFs have at least one woman on their executive board.

In my capacity of secretary general of the Swedish Olympic Committee, I attend the biannual meetings of the world organisation for all the 200 NOCs, ANOC.

According to the above statistics from IOC 66 % of the NOC have at least one woman on their board. But where are they when it comes to be a part of the representation to international meetings?

I can not image that all refuse to accept to go to international meetings if they are invited. At the annual congress of ANOC in Rio de Janeiro the 2000 400 delegates from 192 NOCs participated. Do you know how many women? A total of 8.

Have the women been quoted into their boards just to be a proof that the NOC and the IFs are fulfilling the request of the IOC?

As long as we do get the NOCs and IFs to bring the women into the international work IOC will have big problems in recruiting new female members. According to the nomination commission of IOC for the last session 66 persons where nominated to become an IOC member from the NOCs and the IFs. None of those was a women.

IOC is working hard today to educate with the help of the Olympic Solidarity programs more women coaches, more women sports journalists, more women administrators, more women technical delegates etc.

IOC also arranges seminars for women, both globally and in regions. The IOC-member Anita de Frantz from United States is working very hard as chairperson of the working group for women and sport for women all over the world to help them to find a way to get a bigger role in the leadership of sport.

IOC as well as other international organisations is arranging special seminars for women. I have attended a lot of those seminars and I must say that personally I would like to see just as many men as women attending the seminars. We have to work together. It is dangerous that women become victims of their own fight. Women seminars without men are not always a step forward. Women must try to become a part of the system. Not as a number in the quotas but as persons who adds value to the discussions and I can guarantee you the knowledge of women are not less that the knowledge of men. Women problems are not a women issue it is a human issue.

It is true that this situation is not unique to the sports world. To some degree it reflects the lack of representation and visibility of women within the executive and legislative bodies of many sectors of society.

Recent figures presented in the United Nations Development Programme annual report highlight the continuing relative absence of women from the structures of decision-making. If national situations vary greatly, in average, women parliamentarians hardly reach 14 % of the members of the parliaments and data for their representation in governments is almost similar.

It is essential to acknowledge that a real problem still exists at this level and act to ensure that all organizations responsible for sport and physical education are aware of the continuing imbalance between participation by women on the sports field and with the leadership bodies.

A final remark when will IOC get its first women president, its first president of one of its commissions and at least 20 female members. Today we have 24 women working in different commissions so it is time to give some of the more responsibilities.

Also a question to you all participants attending this seminar. When will the AIPS get its first women president, your national sports journalist association its first women president and the NOC in your country its first women president or secretary general?

Does the IOC reforms really take the situation of the women seriously? The answer is yes and a lot of positive things has been achieved. And I can guarantee you that the women are on the move and we will never ever give up.

Thank you for listening to me.