WOMEN ON THE PODIUM

Suresh Kumar Lau

Despite the demarcation and bans imposed upon them by society, women’s have been participating in competitive sports for centuries. The early Greeks believed that the mind and body were one. Physical exercise was required for both girls and boys, but for different reasons. For youth makes fit body was an indication of strength and health, the ability to excel in competition and sharpness for combat. For young women, it was less about athletic success and more about believing that by making their own bodies strong and healthy. Women would be better prepared, to endure the exhausting and painful process of labour and childbirth and produce strong, healthy sons. Once women reached adulthood, however, athletic competition was forbidden. Their place in society was confined to the roles of wife and mother.

   When engaged in some sport activities in early Greece, but were barred from participating. The most part, the history of women in sport is not especially rich in term of either depth or breath. There is evidence of some sport participation in women ancient times.

Modern Olympics: Current status

Women engaged in some sport activities in Greece, but were barred from participating in Olympic events and faced the death penalty for attempting to be spectators at the game. Little of significance took place in women’s sports in modern western societies until the reintroduction of the Olympic Games in 1896. The father and founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de- Coubertin of France reinstituted the game in 1896 but it was opposed the idea of having women participates. Despite his considerable protests, two events for women, tennis and golf were added in the 1900 games. The year 1996 will long be remembered in sports history as the “year of the sports women” more competed in the Atlanta in 1996 than in any event in the hundred year’s history of the Olympic Games. At the inaugural modern Olympic game of 1896 in Athens, women where limited to the role of spectators-clapping and cheering for the 200 males athletes competing in a sport over a two week period. A century, afterwards, more than 3000 female assembled in Atlanta to compete 100 of the 271 events held.

In 2008, at the Beijing Olympic Games, the percentage of women participating was higher than ever. Of the 11,196 athletes, 4746(42%) were women.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) women and sports Trophy.

The IOC women and sports Trophy is part of the IOC aim of raising awareness of the necessity to address and fund suitable solutions to women’s issue in sports.

Every year the IOC “women and sports” Trophy is awarded to a person or an institution / organization for their remarkable contribution to the development, encouragement and reinforcement of women’s participation in sports and physical activity or in the administrative structures of sports.

IOC Trophy to Minisha Malhotra

Among the winners, the former tennis player Manisha Malhotra became the first Indian chairperson of the International Boxing Association’s (AIBA) women’s Commission Olympian, Manisha who represented India at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and won a mixed doubles silver at the 2002 Busan Asian Games, was awarded the IOC world Trophy for 2010.