Aquatic sports have long made gender equality a priority. For competitions, this is illustrated by a combined presence at Paris 2024 Olympics that includes more women athletes than men, helping enable the Games overall to achieve gender equality for the first time.
Among World Aquatics’ decision-making bodies, our International Federation ranks among the highest in terms of measures aimed at ensuring proper representation. Measures adopted at the Extraordinary Congress in Melbourne saw women added to the World Aquatics Bureau where they now comprise 38% of the membership. Among National Federations, two out of the top three in the Tokyo 2020 medal table for aquatic sports are now led by women.
Recognising International Women’s Day, World Aquatics has chosen to highlight the work of six women whose contributions have significantly improved the aquatic sports for which they share responsibility:
- Open Water – Britta Kamrau
- Water Polo – Voula Kozompoli
- Swimming – Martina Moravcova
- Diving – Jingjing Guo
- High Diving – Adriana Jimenez
- Artistic Swimming – Laura de Renzis
As an open water swimmer, Britta Kamrau won European Championship titles in the 5km, 10km and 25km events, also becoming World Champion at 25km in 2007. Determined to help develop her sport, Britta joined World Aquatics as a member of the Athletes Commission in 2009, serving as an athlete representative until 2022. In that capacity, Britta also joined the Reform Committee created by President Al-Musallam shortly after his election and ensured an athlete-centric approach was at the heart of the sweeping changes made by World Aquatics over the last 18 months.
A member of the Open Water Swimming Technical Committee since 2017, Kamrau has also made significant contributions to lasting improvements in her sport, not least with the revisions to water safety guidelines that will soon be published and will apply this year. “Of course, you want to give something back to the sport and at the same time it widened my own horizons,” said Kamrau of her committee work.
Greek water polo player and Olympic silver medalist Voula Kozompoli is another former athlete who has consistently looked to give back to young people and to sport, through her work with World Aquatics and others, including the Hellenic Olympic Champions Association. As a member of the Water Polo Technical Committee, following on from her membership of the Athletes' Committee, Voula has contributed to the growth of the women’s side of water polo around the world. That growth has seen her sport rise from eight teams in the women’s competitions of Athens 2004 – where Voula won silver – to the current quota of ten teams, ensuring more women athletes have the chance to follow in her footsteps.
One of the best-known sports stars in her native Slovakia, swimmer Martina Moravcova competed in no five consecutive Olympic Games, from Barcelona 1992 to Beijing 2008. She won two silver medals in doing so, and her 105 medals from the Swimming World Cup series marks her out as the second most successful woman in that competition ever, behind only Katinka Hosszu. She was also the overall winner of the Swimming World Cup three times. A year after Beijing 2008, Martina joined the Athletes' Committee and has been a leading voice in the development of swimming ever since, now serving on the Swimming Technical Committee.
Multiple-time Olympic and World Champion Jingjing Guo of China is as part of a cadre of the very highest achievers who have chosen to contribute to the future success of aquatics sports. She is currently a member of the Diving Technical Committee. Her extraordinary career as an athlete saw her become the most successful women diver in Olympic history. And her World Championship victories saw her win the 3m springboard event on no fewer than five consecutive occasions. With the Diving World Cup season shortly to begin in Xi’an, in Central China, fans will soon have a chance to be reminded of Guo’s legacy as a new generation of women divers look to replicate her success.
High diver Adriana Jimenez of Mexico has two World Championship silver medals, from Budapest in 2017 and Gwangju in 2019 and has been one of the pioneers behind the sport’s growth in popularity. In a sport once dominated by male competitors, Jimenez has embodied the fearless approach now finding widespread social media success thanks to those women athletes who have climbed ladders and scaled cliffs in her footsteps. A member of the High Diving Technical Committee, Jimenez has seen her efforts to promote the women’s side of her sport come to fruition with an equal gender split for athletes now featuring as of this year for World Aquatics high diving events.
With decades of successful coaching experience marking her prestigious CV, Italy’s Laura de Renzis is also one of the voices leading her sport to ever greater heights. As a member of the Artistic Swimming Technical Committee, de Renzis has played a key part in shaping the rule changes that will lead to more balanced routines and fairer, more legible scoring. A former Italian national team head coach, de Renzis also brings a vital perspective in ensuring the technical committee is best able to consider just what is needed to ensure young women aquatics athletes have the opportunity to achieve their sporting ambitions.