Egyptian women's participation in the Summer Olympics

The Summer Olympics were first held in 1896 in Athens, but women were not permitted to participate until the second edition of the Games in 1900 in Paris. In that year, 23 female athletes competed alongside 1,201 male athletes.^[1] Seventy-six years after the inaugural Summer Olympics, Egyptian women were on the cusp of participating in the 1972 Summer Olympics for the first time. However, the Egyptian delegation withdrew from the Games prematurely after the Munich incident. As documented in the official report of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Egypt's planned participation included one female athlete alongside 38 male athletes.^[2] However, the participation featured no women and was limited to 23 male athletes.^[3]

Egyptian women eventually made their Olympic debut 88 years after the Games' inception, during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.^[4] This made Egypt the fourth Arab country to have female participants in the Olympics, after Algeria, Libya, and Syria.^[5] Since then, Egyptian women have consistently participated in every Summer Olympics to date.^[4]

The number of Egyptian female participants in the Olympics has varied over the years. The first participation in the 1984 Games had the highest number of female athletes (6 athletes) until the 2000 Sydney Games, which saw 15 female athletes.^[6] Since then, the number of female athletes has increased in each subsequent Olympics,^[6] reaching 34 athletes at the 2012 London Games. This represented the highest proportion of female participation within the Egyptian delegation (31%, with 34 female athletes versus 75 male athletes)^[7] since Egyptian women began competing in the Olympics.^[4]

Similarly, in terms of sports, the 1984 debut saw Egyptian women competing in most sports (4 sports)^[8] until the 2000 Games (9 sports).^[6] Since then, the number of sports in which Egyptian women compete has gradually increased, reaching 17 sports in the 2016 Rio Olympics.^[4][9]

From the inaugural participation of Egyptian women in the 1984 Olympics until the conclusion of the 2012 London Games, Egyptian female athletes were unable to secure any medals over 28 years.^[4] The closest Egyptian women came to winning a medal was in the 2008 Olympics,^[10] where Noha Abd Rabo placed fifth in taekwondo and Abeer Abdelrahman placed fifth in weightlifting.^[7] Abeer replicated this achievement at the subsequent Olympics, securing fifth place alongside Nahla Ramadan in distinct weight categories within the weightlifting competition.^[7]

On August 10, 2016, Sara Ahmed became the first Egyptian female athlete to win an Olympic medal. Sara Ahmed secured a bronze medal in the 69 kg weightlifting category with a total lift of 255 kg, thereby becoming the first Egyptian woman to win an Olympic medal in over a century of Egyptian participation in the Games.^[11] Additionally, she became the inaugural Arab woman to secure an Olympic medal in weightlifting.^[11] Subsequently, the International Olympic Committee and the International Weightlifting Federation awarded Abeer Abdelrahman the silver medal in the 75 kg category at the 2012 Summer Olympics, following the disqualification of the top three competitors for doping.^[12][13] On January 12, 2017, it was announced that Abeer had also been awarded the bronze medal in the 69 kg category at the 2008 Summer Olympics due to the disqualification of the first and third-place competitors for doping.^[14][15][16] Consequently, Abeer Abdelrahman became the first Egyptian female athlete to win an Olympic medal, the first to win two Olympic medals, and the only Egyptian woman to have won a silver medal to date.^[17]

With female participation exceeding one-third of the Egyptian delegation, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics marked the largest Egyptian women's participation in the history of the Summer Games. A record 48 Egyptian female athletes competed in 21 different sports, representing the highest number of Egyptian women participating in the Olympics to date.^[18]

The first gold medal ^[19] for an Egyptian woman was won by Feryal Abdelaziz in karate.^[20][21] Additionally, the Egyptian delegation secured the highest number of medals in a single Olympics, with Hedaya Malak and Giana Farouk each winning bronze medals in taekwondo and karate, respectively.^[22][18]

This constituted Malak's second bronze medal, the first having been awarded at the Rio 2016 Games.^[23] She became the fifth Egyptian athlete to win multiple medals in the history of the Summer Olympics, joining the ranks of Farid Simaika, Ibrahim Shams, Karam Gaber, and Abeer Abdelrahman.^[24]

The participation of women in the Olympic Games has involved multiple instances of relatives competing in different or even the same editions of the Games. Sisters^[25][26] Sherwet and Nevine Hafez were the first Egyptian women to compete together at the 1984 Olympics, participating in swimming events at the ages of 17 and 15,^[8] respectively. Subsequently, sisters^[27][28] Shaimaa and Eman El-Gammal both participated in fencing at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, even competing together in team events in both editions.^[7][10] Before her sister's participation,^[27] Shaimaa had already competed in the 2000 and 2004 Games.

Dina Meshref participated in the 2012 London Olympics, following in the footsteps of her aunt,^[29] Nihal Meshref, who had previously competed in the 1988 and 1992 Games in table tennis,^[30] and her cousin, Yousra Helmy, who had also competed in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics in the same sport.^[31] In conclusion, twin sisters Nada and Nihal Saafan participated together in the synchronized swimming team event at the 2016 Rio Olympics.^[32][33]