Enriqueta Basilio Sotel, the first woman to light the Olympic cauldron, in Mexico City, 1968
As a leader of the Olympic Movement whose first objective is to promote Olympism and develop sport worldwide, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has played an important role in establishing a positive trend to enhance women's participation in sport, especially in the last 20 years. The IOC has also undertaken more general action in the field of advocacy, especially among National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Sports Federations (IFs), with the aim of raising awareness of the need to ensure strict equality between men and women, to provide women with wider access to sports activities, as well as encouraging them to take leadership positions in sports administration.
The women and sport Olympic movement is fairly "young". Strategies and coordinated actions led by the IOC started to emerge in the late 1980s. Although its expansion is encouraging and much progress has been seen in the field of play, much remains to be done at the leadership level. Of all the sectors of activity, the management and administration of sports organisations is certainly the one in which greater efforts must be made to address the inequalities which still exist. The IOC recognised the need to keep the pressure on and to have a multi-sector approach dealing with women and sport issues.
