The Paris Games will be the first with absolute parity for male and female athletes, and there will also be other important firsts in terms of services and support for gender equality. The baton of equality will then pass to Milan Cortina 2026. However, international and national data on the presence and representation of women's sports in the media remain critical: sports news focusing on women represents only 4% of the total, and often uses stereotypical language.
Milan, July 4, 2024 – Yesterday morning, at the Milan headquarters of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, the #100esperte project, promoted by Gi.U.Li.A. Giornaliste and the Pavia Observatory with the support of the Bracco Foundation, in collaboration with the Lombardy Order of Journalists, the Catholic University's Graduate School of Media, Communication and Entertainment (Almed), and the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation, organized a training and in-depth meeting on the topic of equality in view of the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The meeting arose from the need to address the issue of equal opportunities in sports reporting by providing the press and public debate with data and research that illustrate the challenges of sports reporting from a female perspective, comparing the viewpoints of institutional figures in sport, academia, and Olympic and Paralympic sport.
The starting point is significant: the Paris Games will be the first with absolute parity. While 22 women participated in Paris 1900 (2%), in Tokyo 2020 they reached 48.7%. At the next Olympic Games, there will be 5,250 women and 5,250 men (50%).
Significant progress has also been made in the Paralympics: in Rome 1960, 37 women and 161 men (19%) participated; in the 2024 Paralympics, there will be 235 medal-winning events for women (43% of a total of 549).
As Marco Lombardi, Director of the School of Journalism at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, explained, the very symbol of the next Olympics consists of a gold medal, the one all athletes strive for, an Olympic flame that inspires each athlete to compete, and above all, a woman's face. It is the face of Marianne, a symbol that for France has a very clear meaning: equality, freedom, and fraternity.
However, there is still a gender gap among all leadership roles at the Olympic Games, such as Chef de Mission, Technical Official, and coach.
As Claudia Giordani, Vice President of CONI, noted, Paris 2024 will also feature other important firsts in terms of gender equality. Thanks to the efforts of the IOC Athletes' Commission, its President Emma Thero, and the Organizing Committee, the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Village will feature a dedicated space for athletes and parents of young children for the first time, allowing them to spend time with their families. Thanks to the Athletes' Commission, chaired by Raffaella Masciadri, CONI has offered scholarships for the first time to athlete mothers. The Games are thus becoming increasingly important for cultural progress and the affirmation of sporting values, including gender equality.
For Paris 2024, OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services), which produces TV, radio and digital content for the Olympics and Paralympics, will have 30 more women in commentary roles and more women in production teams and management positions.
For the first time, the IOC Guidelines "Portrayal. Gender-Equal, Fair, and Inclusive Representation in Sport," established in 2018 to ensure fair and inclusive representation of sport, will also be available in Italian, edited by the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026.
As Diana Bianchedi, Chief Strategy Planning Legacy Officer of Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, emphasized, if Paris 2024 will be the first Olympic Games in history to achieve gender parity, the baton will then be passed to the Milan Cortina 2026 Games, which will be the most gender-balanced winter edition in history, with 47% female participation and 50 women's events. During the Winter Paralympics, there will be 39 medal-winning events for men, 35 for women, and five mixed events.
When analyzing the relationship between women, sport, and the media, international and national data on the presence and representation of women's sports in the media are not encouraging. As Monia Azzalini, Head of Media and Gender at the Pavia Observatory, noted, according to the sixth edition of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Report, the largest international research project on women in the media, sports news focusing on women represents only 4%. Among sports professionals, women have only 14% visibility compared to 86% for men, yet they are almost never consulted as experts. Finally, the GMMP Report, which in 2020 collected data from five different media outlets in 116 countries worldwide, analyzing 30,172 news stories, found that sports coverage dedicated to issues of gender equality and inequality represents only 1%, despite sport being the fifth most covered topic globally.
Regarding the topic of communication and media responsibility in sports reporting, Paola Abbiezzi, Director of Studies for the Master's in Communicating Sport and Coordinator of Studies at the School of Journalism at the Catholic University of Milan, drew attention to a key passage from the IOC Portraiture Guidelines: "Sport is one of the most powerful platforms for promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and sports coverage is highly influential in shaping gender norms and stereotypes."
By reaching broad audiences, Abbiezzi explained, sports storytelling can promote narratives of progress and highlight new role models or, conversely, perpetuate deeply rooted stereotypes and clichés. Gaps still exist, both quantitatively (media attention paid to women's sports in recent years during major events has hovered around 5%) and qualitatively (language is still rife with gender stereotypes related to physicality, age, relationship status, and family context rather than the competitive aspect). This can also influence women, especially young women, to abandon sports.
In the current cultural and media context, data on the presence of women in various sectors of society are beginning to emerge, but the opportunities for women's skills and expertise to emerge and have space, a voice, and visibility are still too few. As Gaela Bernini, Secretary General of the Bracco Foundation, emphasized, the online database (https://100esperte.it/) of the project "100 women against stereotypes" (#100esperte)—the brainchild of Gi.U.Li.A. Giornaliste and the Pavia Observatory, with the support of the Bracco Foundation and the European Commission Representation in Italy—is freely accessible and features over 460 experts in strategic fields (STEM, Economics and Finance, International Politics, History and Philosophy, Sport). It is now a strategic tool for quickly and accurately accessing data and profiles of female professionals to engage in public debate and thus contribute to achieving gender equality in media representation.
The meeting, moderated by journalist Luisella Seveso, was attended (in order of speaking): Marco Lombardi, Director of the School of Journalism at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Claudia Giordani, former Olympic Nordic skiing champion, Vice President of CONI; Diana Bianchedi, Chief Strategy Planning Legacy Officer of the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation; Gaela Bernini, General Secretary of the Bracco Foundation; Monia Azzalini, Head of the Media and Gender Sector at the Pavia Observatory; Paola Abbiezzi, Director of Studies for the Master's Degree in Communicating Sport at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Mimma Caligaris, GiULiA Journalists; Ruben Razzante, Professor of Information Law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Sergio Giuntini, President of the Italian Society of Sports History; Chiara Mazzel, Paralympic skiing champion; Novella Calligaris, former Olympic swimming champion, president of ANAOAI (National Association of Italian Olympic Athletes).
Claudia Giordani, Diana Bianchedi, Paola Abbiezzi, and Novella Calligaris are also part of the 100esperte sport database.