Women's participation in the Olympics will come full circle at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, hosting for the third time in history.
Paris' first Olympics occurred in 1900 and marked the first time that women were allowed to compete in the Olympics. At the 1900 Games, 22 of 997 total athletes were women.
The 2024 Paris Games will mark the first Olympics to achieve full gender parity. Out of the 10,500 athletes participating in the Games, 5,250 will be men and 5,250 women. The 2020 Tokyo Games were previously the most gender-balanced to date, with 47.8% of all athletes being women. At the 1964 Tokyo Games, women accounted for only 13% of all athletes.
Team USA has followed a similar climb in gender parity, marked in large part by the impact of Title IX becoming law in 1972. Since 1972, Team USA has seen a 310% increase in female participation on summer U.S. Olympic rosters. In 1972, women athletes from 38 colleges and universities were on the U.S. Olympic team roster. At the 2020 Games, that number was 112 schools.
As opportunities for women in college sports continue to increase, the collegiate pipeline to Team USA continues to strengthen. Learn more about NCAA women in the Olympics below.
Most decorated NCAA athletes
Team USA's most decorated women — Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin — share two things in common: They all won 12 Olympic medals in swimming, and they all swam in college.
Among women with NCAA ties, Thompson, a Stanford graduate, tallied the most gold medals for Team USA. Thompson collected eight gold, three silver and one bronze medal across four Olympics. Thompson also earned 19 individual and relay NCAA titles while at Stanford, along with leading the program to four straight NCAA team championships from 1992-95.
Torres, a Florida alum, won four gold, four silver and four bronze medals across five Olympics. In 2008, Torres became the oldest swimmer to earn a place on the U.S. Olympic team at age 41. At Florida, she earned 28 All-America honors.
Coughlin swam collegiately at California for three years before beginning an Olympic career that included three gold medals, four silvers and five bronzes. In college, she won 11 NCAA titles individually and one relay title, as well.
NCAA to Team USA
At the 2020 Games, 70% of Team USA's women (233 of 331) had NCAA ties, the latest in an upward trend for participation by women. The 2012 London Games marked the first time a U.S. Olympic team had more women overall than men (six more). At the Rio de Janeiro Games, the U.S. Olympic roster had 27 more women than men, and in Tokyo, that number nearly doubled to 51 more women than men. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, 181 women with NCAA ties competed for Team USA. That number increased to 212 at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and hit 215 in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Powerhouse pipelines
Curious which schools produce the most women Olympians for Team USA? Since 2000, UCLA leads the way with 66 athletes, followed by Stanford (61 athletes) and North Carolina (40 athletes).
Keeping it 100
While college sports are a major pipeline for a number of women's sports, athletes with NCAA ties made up 100% of eight Team USA rosters in Tokyo: water polo, indoor volleyball, beach volleyball, softball, rowing, basketball, 3x3 basketball and diving.
Notably, Team USA won gold medals in Tokyo in women's water polo, basketball, indoor volleyball, 3x3 basketball and beach volleyball (April Ross and Alix Klineman). Team USA also won a silver medal in softball, while former Nevada standout Krysta Palmer captured a bronze in the 3-meter diving competition.
Gold standard
South Carolina women's basketball head coach Dawn Staley is a legend for what she's done in the college game as a coach and a player, but her accomplishments for Team USA are equally impressive. Staley is the second woman ever to win a gold medal for Team USA as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach, following in the footsteps of former Old Dominion player Anne Donovan. Staley won gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2004 on the court, and coached Team USA to a gold at the 2020 Tokyo Games. She also served as an assistant when the U.S. won gold in 2008 and 2016.
At the college level, Staley has won a pair of NCAA titles on the sidelines at South Carolina, and her undefeated 2024 team entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 overall seed.
