This year’s Olympic games will see equal numbers of female and male golfers, 112 years since women last played golf at the Olympics.
60 golfers of each gender are set to compete in individual events, with the men’s event beginning on the sixth day of the Olympics and the women’s starting on the twelfth day.
The equality comes as golf returns to the Olympic schedule after more than a century. The 2016 Olympic games will be the first time that golf has been played at the competition since the 1904 Olympics.
This year’s inclusion of golf in the Olympic schedule has been seen as a unique opportunity to raise the profile of women’s golf and female golfers.
Speaking recently, the Ladies European Tour chief executive, Ivan Khodabakhsh said, “The Olympics is going to be an absolute game-changer. We are convinced about how exciting women’s golf is and we will have the opportunity to show that to billions of people.”
Amongst those women playing in Rio will be some of the top women’s seeds, while most of the top male seeds have decided against playing at the Olympics. These include Jason Day, the number one seed, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy.
Coverage of the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony will begin on Saturday 6th 2016 at midnight, although the games began with women’s football two days before this.
Athletes from over 200 nations will be taking part in the games, which also sees the introduction of rugby sevens to its programme. However, the build-up has been overshadowed with the Russian doping scandal and the Zika virus.
