Women in sport - research

When was the firs time women compeated in the olympics?

Women have competed in the Olympics since 1900, following an all-male Games in 1896.

Research 2 women who compeated in the olympics in 1920

Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman.

She was an American tennis player and founder of the Wightman Cup, an annual team competition for British and American women. She dominated American women's tennis before World War I, and won 45 U.S. titles during her life.

Wightman was born Hazel Virginia Hotchkiss in Healdsburg, California to William Joseph and Emma Lucretia Hotchkiss. In February 1912, at the age of 25, she married George William Wightman of Boston. She became a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of California-Berkeley and served as the chapter's President.

Wightman was the mother of five children and died at her home in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1974.

In 1973, Queen Elizabeth II made her an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Ethelda Bleibtrey

She was an American swimmer who overcame a crippling illness to win three gold medals at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp.

Bleibtrey began swimming as therapy to counteract the effects of polio. Because she swam without stockings in 1919, she was given a summons for “nude swimming”; the subsequent public support for Bleibtrey led to the abandonment of stockings as a conventional element in women’s swimwear. By the 1920 Olympics she held the world record in the backstroke. Since the Olympics had no backstroke event for women, she entered the only three races open to women that year. 

Bleibtrey won every national American swimming championship from 50 yards to long distance and never lost a race during her amateur career. In 1922 she turned professional. In 1928 she was arrested for swimming in the Central Park reservoir while demonstrating for more public swimming facilities in New York City. She spent much of her life teaching swimming to handicapped children.

Research the first black woman to win a gold medal in the olympics

Alice Coachman Davis 

She was an American athlete specialized in high jump and was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

Coachman was born on November 9, 1922 in Albany, Georgia and was the fifth of Fred and Evelyn Coachman's ten children.

Raised in the segregated South, Coachman was unable to access athletic training facilities or participate in organised sports because of the colour of her skin. Added to the list of training barriers was her status as a female athlete during a time of widespread opposition to women in sport. She trained using what was available to her running shoeless along the dirtroads near her home and using homemade equipment to practice her jumping.

Coachman attended Monroe Street Elementary School where she was encouraged by her fifth-grade teacher Cora Bailey and from her aunt, Carrie Spry, despite the reservations of her parents. Upon enrolling at Madison High School in 1938 she joined the track team, working with to develop her skill as an athlete. At the age of 16 after she was offered a scholarship. The scholarship required her to work while studying and training, which included cleaning and maintaining sports facilities as well as mending uniforms.

For each decade staring from 1920s to the 2010 note down one significant sporting achievement for women in sport.

The National Basketball League (NBL) was a professional men's basketball league in the United States established in 1937. After the 1948–49 season, its twelfth, it merged with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to create the National Basketball Association (NBA).

The English Football League (EFL) is a league competition featuring professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in world football. It was the top-level football league in England from its foundation in the 19th century until 1992, when the top 22 clubs split away to form the Premier League.

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA), founded in 1973 by Billie Jean King, is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. It governs the WTA Tour which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women. Its counterpart organization in the men's professional game is the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

The Women's Tennis Association was founded in the month of June 1973, but traces its origins to the inaugural Virginia Slimstournament, arranged by Gladys Heldman, and held on 23 September 1970 at the Houston Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Rosie Casals won this first event. The WTA's corporate headquarters is in St. Petersburg, Florida, with its European headquarters in London and its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing.

Choose 2 different sports make brief notes on issue of equal pay and television coverage.

In all four tennis majors (and many standalone tournaments), pay is equal. But this wasn’t always the case.

The US Open was the first major to offer equal pay in 1973, after women’s champion Billie Jean King threatened to organize a boycott of the tournament.

It took 28 years until another grand slam consistently awarded equal prize money.

The Australian Open offered female and male champions the same size prize in the mid 80s and early 90s — women were even paid slightly more than men in 1987 and 1988 — according to Tennis Australia’s records. But pay equality lapsed over several years. Finally, in 2001, the Australian Open became only the second tournament to commit to parity.

After years of almost-but-not-quite-equal pay, the French Open, gave women’s and men’s champions equal money in 2006. Wimbledon held out for another year.