Title IX is an important factor in the success of female U.S. Olympians.

Team USA includes the most women to have competed for any nation. Ever.

Want a quick primer in what makes America great? You need go no further than the U.S. Olympic team competing in the Games in Rio de Janeiro. It is the best in the world today, and arguably the most talented team fielded in a single Olympics ever. Our Olympians are on track to come away with more than 42 gold medals, 36 silver and 37 bronze. It is a remarkable feat of athleticism.

But today we would like to salute the team for its diversity. The 554 athletes who represent Team USA include the most women to have competed for any nation. Ever. There are more women on this team than men, 292 to 262. Many are participating in sports long considered the province of men. Women’s boxing, for example, was sanctioned as an Olympic sport in 2012; weightlifting in 2000; wrestling in 2008; and women’s rugby for the first time in this Olympics. American women have won medals in all of these except rugby. They have broken nine Olympic records so far; four by a single woman competitor — swimmer extraordinaire Katie Ledecky. Two of our own have broken records. Spring’s Simone Biles has collected four gold medals, an American record in women’s gymnastics at a single Olympics, and Sugar Land’s Simone Manuel set a new Olympic record in the women’s 100 meter freestyle. Manuel won four medals overall and was the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic gold in a swimming event.

To what do we owe the extraordinary performance of our female Olympians? One important factor is Title IX, that one sentence addition to the Education Amendments of 1972 that bars discrimination on the basis of sex under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. When the bill passed and was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, no one would have suggested that its purpose was to draw more women into sports.

But that’s where its impact has been most profound. In the years since its passage, the number of girls and women playing high school and college sports has grown from 330,000 to 3,300,000. In 1972, athletic scholarships for women were nonexistent; by 2010, women were getting about 48 percent of those scholarship dollars.

But the reach of Title IX stretches well beyond young women getting an opportunity to go to college on scholarship. Many of the most talented female athletes at the Olympics didn’t go to college; they spent years training at tennis camps or with gymnastic coaches.

The power of Title IX and the resulting flood of women into sports is in its message that athleticism and strength are positive female characteristics.

The power of Title IX is in its declaration that competitive zeal is, in fact, a totally feminine quality.

The power of Title IX is that it opened up new possibilities to half the population and expanded the pool of extraordinarily talented and determined athletes exponentially.

In the 1972 Summer Olympics, U.S. women won 23 medals; not a single gold medal in track and field. In 2016, not only did America’s women win gold medals in these sports, but Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin swept gold, silver and bronze in the women’s 100 meter hurdles, an Olympic first for women. Without women on the 2016 team, the U.S. would have collected fewer than half the medals it did. More than anything, Title IX and the power of women on the Olympic team demonstrate that policy changes can successfully lead to positive cultural changes.

The key to America’s future is in making sure every young person has the opportunity to reach her full potential. No endeavor, whether in economics or sports, will be successful if half the population — or more — is sidelined. Diversity, not division, makes America great.