The 2024 Paris Olympics were for women.
The event was the first in history to achieve gender parity, with an equal number of male and female competitors.
Women have thrived on the world stage and broken numerous records.
Perhaps most impressive is the sheer number of medals won by U.S. women.
The women won 67 of the U.S. team’s 126 medals, seven more than the men (though Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal is in question after the IOC asked that it go to Romania).
If the U.S. women were an independent nation, they would have won the third-most medals behind the United States and China, and that would have been true even without Chile’s bronze medal.
The fourth-highest medal-winning country to come in next to the U.S. women is Great Britain, with 65 medals.
The 67 medals are a record for U.S. women and a record for women from any country, surpassing the U.S. total of 66 in Tokyo.
The U.S. men also performed well, with 60 medals, the fifth-most ever by a country.
Katie Ledecky won her ninth gold medal at the Games and her 14th overall, making her the most decorated female Olympic swimmer in history.
Simone Biles and the women’s gymnastics team, known as the “Golden Girls,” completed their revenge tour by bringing home the gold medal in the team event.
Biles and Suni Li took first and second place in the all-around, becoming the first two women’s individual all-around gold medalists to face off in an all-around final, while Cirrus and Biles created an emotional moment when they bowed to floor exercise gold medalist Rebecca Andrade of Brazil on the podium.
Amit Ehrold became the youngest U.S. wrestler in history to win a gold medal, and Lauren Scruggs took home an individual silver and team gold medal in fencing and made history as the first openly Black woman.
The U.S. women’s basketball team won an eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal and was praised by former President Barack Obama at X.
The star-studded women’s 4x400m relay team concluded the Olympic track and field events yesterday, beating all other competitors by nearly four seconds to claim the gold medal.
Despite the many victories for female athletes, there was also backlash against two athletes whose gender was unfairly called into question.
Algerian boxer Imane Kherif, who won gold in the women’s welterweight division, and Chinese Taipei’s featherweight Lin Yu-ting are in a dark spot after Kherif’s opening bout win over Italy’s Angela Carini.
Kherif beat Kallini in just 46 seconds. After the bout, Kallini refused to shake Kherif’s hand, collapsed to the floor and cried. Her rapid defeat exposed doubts about the 2023 status of the Russia-led International Boxing Federation, which last year barred Kherif and Lin from a bout in New Delhi for failing a “gender eligibility test.”
False allegations about Kherif’s gender have exploded online, sparking a firestorm of online abuse and now a legal battle. Kherif filed suit on Sunday, claiming she was the target of “vicious cyber harassment,” which her lawyers described as a “misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
The International Olympic Committee has defended her and criticised those spreading misinformation, with Mr Khelif saying spreading misinformation about her was “an offence to human dignity”.
Khelif’s home country has supported her, defended her against misconceptions about her gender and congratulated her on her decisive boxing gold medal victory on Tuesday. She was named Algeria’s flag-bearer on Sunday and will lead the delegation at the closing ceremony.
