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The development of women's participation in the Olympic Games
In 1996 in Atlanta there was a splendid celebration for the Centenary Games. Four years later, in 2000 in Sydney, it was the 100th celebration of the first  participation of women in the Olympics. In 1900 in Paris, 19 female athletes from five European countries took part in three events of two sports: golf and tennis. The participation of women in the second Olympic organization, despite the expressed opposition of Coubertin, is owed to the fact that the organization of the Games had been assigned to the organizing committee of the World's Fair, which was held in Paris in that year and with great splendour at that, due to the change of the century. For similar reasons women were allowed to participate in the following Olympics as well, the 1904 Saint Louis Olympics. Six women participated in three fencing events in those Games, which, like the previous ones, included a number of sports, among which only a few were considered Olympic sports. In the 1908 London Olympics, tennis was reintroduced in the programme of the Games, while in 1912 in Stockholm one diving and two swimming events were added to the programme. Female participation in these two organizations totalled 36 and 57 athletes respectively corresponding to 2% approximately of the athletes who took part in these Games.
A milestone in the participation of women was the 1928 Olympics, whose programme included 14 women's events (out of a total of 109) in four sports (athletics, aquatics, gymnastics and fencing). 290 female athletes coming from 26 countries participated in those Olympics, which represented almost 10% of the general participation. In the following organizations, however, there was a downward trend and only in the Olympic Games of 1948 the percentage of female participation neared 10% again. In 1956 it increased to 16% and by the late 1970s female participation exceeded 20%. In the 2000 Sydney Olympics it exceeded 40%.
With regard to the participation of women in the various Olympic sports, the two last decades were particularly important. It is characteristic that in the 1948 London Olympics the sports that included women's events were 5, in the 1972 Munich Olympics they were 7 increasing to 12 in 1980 (Moscow) and to 18 in 1988 (Seoul), whereas in 2000 women participated in 25 out of the 28 Olympic sports. Only boxing and wrestling have no women's events, whereas for the first time women participated in the same team sports with men. An exception to the above was baseball, in which participate only men and softball in which participate only women (rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming are exclusively women's events as well). At the same time, over the last Olympic organizations there is a dramatic reduce in the number of countries that participate in the Olympics without including women in their delegations.
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