Olympics 2008

Did you know that women staged their own version of the Olympics throughout the 1920s and '30s?

I didn't until I started researching the number 80 and its Olympic connections (it seemed too easy to feature a story from the Moscow Games of 1980).

It turns out France's Alice Milliat was more than a little disgruntled with the International Olympic Committee and the International Amateur Athletic Federation's refusal to include women's track and field athletics on the Olympic programme in 1920.

Other events such as archery, tennis and gymnastics had been held alongside men's events from 1900 onwards.

So Milliat staged the first women's Olympic Games in Paris in 1922 and 18 athletes broke world records during the one-day competition in front of 20,000 spectators.

Four years later Gothenburg hosted the contest which attracted women from 10 nations.

By now the IOC and IAAF were infuriated with the name of the event and suggested a compromise - women could have 10 events on the IOC programme if they changed the name of their event to the Women's World Games.

Milliat kept to her part of the bargain, but the IAAF reneged and allowed just five athletics events at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, prompting the only feminist boycott in Olympic history by the British team.

All this paved the way 80 years ago for America's Betty Robinson, 17, to become the first female Olympic track champion when she won the 100m in only her fourth competitive race over the distance.

And the Women's World Games? They were next held in 1930 in Prague, before the last event was staged in London in 1934, but Milliat had started the push towards gender equality at the Olympics.

It has not all been plain sailing though.

Because some of the competitors were exhausted after finishing the 800m race in 1928, all events over 200m were banned from the Olympic programme until 1960.

The women's marathon did not make its debut until 1984 though, while wrestling was only allowed four years ago.

Canoeing and boxing are the two sports where women still do not participate, although they do have synchronised swimming all to themselves.

But how far do you think gender equality at the Olympics has gone?