For the first time in Olympic history, female athletes will outnumber their male counterparts at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games, thanks to a landmark victory for women’s football.
In a historic move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the women’s football tournament will feature 16 teams, surpassing the men’s tournament, which will have 12 teams. This shift reverses the gender imbalance seen at the Paris Olympics, where men’s football had 16 teams and women’s had 12.
The IOC executive board’s decision brings the athlete quota for LA 2028 to 50.7% women and 49.3% men, with 5,333 female athletes and 5,167 male athletes, the IOC confirmed.
The gap is slightly narrowed when athletes for the sports being added specifically to the LA program – including cricket, flag football, and lacrosse – are counted. Those sports will feature 322 female and 376 male competitors.
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 with the men’s event, each featuring 12 nations. Boxing will have one extra women’s weight class to match the men’s lineup of seven medal events.
“The message of gender equality is a really important one for us,” IOC sports director Kit McConnell said. “We really thank LA 28 for supporting this. It’s central to their vision as well.”
The IOC's headline decision addressed an inequality dating back to the debut of women’s football at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when only eight teams participated – half as many as in the men’s tournament.
The board confirmed a proposal revealed last Thursday by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during his address at the annual meeting of European football body UEFA.
The case for change was made more compelling because the women’s football tournament is a top-tier title with national teams sending their best players.
The men’s tournament, however, rarely attracts the best players due to selection conflicts with clubs worldwide and is mostly for players aged 23 or under.
The French men’s team, which took silver in Paris last year, was unable to select Kylian Mbappe, who had just signed with Real Madrid.
There have been 16 men’s football teams at every Summer Games since Moscow in 1980, including Paris last year.
The women’s lineup increased to 10 teams at the 2004 Athens Olympics and to 12 at the 2008 Beijing Games.
FIFA and Infantino had repeatedly called for equality with a 16-team women’s tournament, which would have added about 70 extra players, plus team officials, further stretching athlete accommodation quotas for Olympic organizers.
The solution found favored the women’s edition over the men’s and further advanced the IOC’s policy of gender parity at the Olympics, first achieved in Paris.
Golf and the 4x100-meter sprint relay will feature mixed-gender team events for the first time in Los Angeles. Other new mixed-gender team events will be in artistic gymnastics, archery, coastal rowing, and table tennis.
A new Olympic record of 351 medal events will be held in 2028, comprising 161 for women, 165 for men and 25 mixed events, the IOC said.
