Rally on for women
THERE is a lot of work to be done to increase the number of women coaches and technical officials.
This was the statement by the president of the Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) Dr Robin Mitchell while speaking at the IWG World Conference on Women and Sport's Satellite Suva Hub this week.
“In Tokyo, we almost had parity in the number of women taking part versus men,” he said.
“Beijing was almost the same number, and we hope this continues with Paris 2024 right up to Brisbane 2032. What we would like to see is more women technical officials such as judges and referees and also coaches. Hopefully, Team Up, the Fiji Association of Sport and National Olympic Committee (FASANOC) and we at ONOC can pick up on this together.”
According to ONOC, the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games and Beijing 2022 Winter Games were Olympic milestone achievements for gender parity in athlete participation with 48 percent and 45 percent women taking part respectively.
In contrast, there were 32 per cent women technical officials and only 13 per cent women coaches at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games.
“ONOC provides technical support to gender equality initiatives in sport through the work of our Equity Commission which is chaired by Helen Brownlee of Australia.
“Our work is to provide the avenues for women to achieve at all levels of sport – and we recognise that sport is largely run by volunteers, particularly at national federation level. Our role is to empower women and they are underrepresented in sport at all levels.”
Dr Mitchell described the role of ONOC as one of five Continental Associations under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and provided a brief history to contextualise their work in the region.
“Oceania receives $US26 million ($FJ58m) every four years under the Continental Programs, but more national federations need to be working with their National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to access grants under World Programs of Olympic Solidarity.” He acknowledged Team Up and the Australian government, with whom ONOC is working with in the lead up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games.