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Olympic sailing had a problem — and a deadline.
It took nearly a century for sailing to hold an Olympic event for women. The 1988 Games in Seoul saw an American pair walk away with the first women’s sailing gold medal, in the double-handed 470 class. In the years since, sailing continued to lag behind most other sports at the Games in gender parity.
Pressured by mandates from the International Olympic Committee to have an equal number of male and female athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Games, World Sailing added more roster spots in women’s events to reach that goal.