Alice Milliat Builds a World Stage for Women’s Athletics

On August 20, 1922, the Pershing Stadium in Paris hosted a major international gathering of female track and field competitors. Known originally as the Jeux Olympiques Féminins, or Women's Olympic Games, the meet followed an earlier women's competition staged in Monte Carlo in 1921 and became the first of the Women's World Games, a series of international track and field meetings for women held until 1934. The single-day competition emerged out of persistent friction with mainstream athletic bodies, serving as a direct challenge to the governance of international sport.

The driving administrative force behind the gathering was the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale, led by French organizer Alice Milliat. Milliat and her colleagues established the tournament after the International Olympic Committee refused to admit women into the track and field program planned for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Rather than accepting exclusion from the official Olympic schedule, Milliat coordinated an independent global platform to stage women's events.