Lausanne (Switzerland), April 2 : The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has increased the women’s boxing categories from five to six in the 2024 Paris Olympics, in order to achieve gender equality in athlete participation. In Paris men’s events, however, events have been reduced to seven from Tokyo Games 2020 (eight). The Executive Board (EB) of the IOC on Saturday unveiled the competition schedule for 2024 Olympics, starting from July 24. In all, 32 sports will be on the programme, resulting in 19 days of competition with 329 medal events and a total of 762 sessions. “The Olympic Games Paris 2024 will be the first fully gender-balanced Games, with exactly 50 per cent male and female participation, following on from the gender equality already achieved for Tokyo 2020, which had 47.8 per cent female participation. Paris 2024 will also mark the growth in mixed events on the programme, compared to Tokyo 2020, from 18 to 20,” the IOC said in a statement. The IOC EB also accepted the shooting competition formats and the weight classes for weightlifting. As at Tokyo 2020, the weightlifting events will be gender balanced, with five men’s and five women’s weight classes, and equal numbers of male and female athletes. Boxing weight categories: Men: 51kg, 57kg, 63.5kg, 71kg, 80kg, 92kg and +92kg Women: 50kg, 54kg, 57kg, 60kg, 75kg. BAV GK