Female athletes will be in the majority at an Olympics for the first time at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games thanks to a big win for women’s soccer.
The Olympic women’s soccer tournament will be bigger than the men’s edition for the first time in 2028, the International Olympic Committee decided Wednesday, with 16 teams for women and now just 12 for men — flipping the gender imbalance at the Paris Olympics which had 16 men’s teams and 12 in the women’s tournament.
That decision by the IOC executive board helped push the core quota of athletes for L.A. to 50.7% women and 49.3% men — 5,333 for women and 5,167 for men, the IOC said.
The gap is closed slightly when athletes for the sports being added specially to the L.A. program — involving 322 female and 376 male competitors — are included. Those sports include cricket, flag football and lacrosse.
The landmark progress for women athletes was made at an online board meeting Wednesday co-chaired in Lausanne for the first time by Kirsty Coventry as president-elect since her win last month. In June she will formally replace her mentor Thomas Bach and become the IOC’s first female leader in its 131-year history.
Two more women’s teams were added in water polo so that tournament in Los Angeles will be equal…
