2020 Tokyo Olympics is all about gender balance

After years of male supremacy in the Olympic games, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee has made two major changes for the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The decisions draw our attention to gender neutrality.

According to Olympic channel, "The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will be the first gender-balanced Olympic Games in history with 48.8 per cent women’s participation,” said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

“Today, the IOC EB also decided that there should be – for the first time ever – at least one female and one male athlete in every one of the 206 teams and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team participating at the Games of the Olympiad. Additionally, we have also changed the rules to allow National Olympic Committees to nominate a female and a male athlete to jointly bear their flag during the Opening Ceremony. We encourage all National Olympic Committees to make use of this option. With these two initiatives, the IOC is sending another extremely strong message to the world that gender balance is a reality at the Olympic Games,” Bach has stressed.

The EB fixated on representation of one male and one female athlete for their respective NOC's. This is the first time that anything of this sort is being done in the history of the games. Not only this but this time each country is getting to select two flag bearers, one male and one female. This has brought a lot of encouragement and appreciation for the Olympic unit.

There have been development in the IOC when it comes to gender balance from at least one female to be their in all the NOC's during the London Olympics to represent their nations to having all 206 NOCs represented by at least one male and one female athlete together in their delegations, a feat they achieved in this edition.

Be it on or off the field, the IOC is trying its best to achieve the complete gender balanced status. For example 46 per cent of IOC commission members are female. This is a historic high. Since 2013, as a result of Olympic Agenda 2020, female participation in the IOC commissions has more than doubled, reports Olympic Channel.

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