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COMMONWEALTH GAMES FEDERATION IMPLEMENTS GENDER EQUALITY

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Now it’s Equal Medals for Women and Men as Commonwealth Games XXI Commonwealth Games opens next month in Gold Coast, Queensland in Australia. On the occasion of the International Women’s Day on Thursday, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) announced the implementation of the gender equality policy.

Thus, for the first time ever, there will be an equal number of women’s and men’s medal events at a Commonwealth Games. It is a core part of the CGF’s far-reaching gender equality strategy, the Federation approved seven additional women’s event categories to the Gold Coast 2018 sports programme to ensure that men and women compete for an equal number of medals – 133 women’s events; 133 men’s events and nine mixed/open events.

The strategy, launched at the 2016 CGF General Assembly in Edmonton, Canada, strives to ensure that women and girls are equally represented, recognised and served across all areas of the Commonwealth Sports Movement. It also sets the benchmark for gender equality standards seen anywhere in international sport.

Louise Martin, President of the CGF said: “International Women’s Day is the right time to reflect on how far we have come with gender equality and how far we still have to go to ensure real balance and fairness in both sport and society.

The Commonwealth Sports Movement is proud to be setting the pace for equal gender representation and opportunity in sport, by ensuring that an equal number of medals will be up for grabs at Gold Coast 2018 for women and med.

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With significant steps forward like this, we believe our unwavering commitment to gender equality is a core value that differentiates the Commonwealth Games from any other international sports movement. Indeed, it is our committed work in areas such as gender equality that make the Commonwealth and Commonwealth Sports Movement more relevant than ever before.”

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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