The 2026 Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina were the most gender-balanced games in history, with a record number of female athletes. But, the official numbers from the games hint that the number of women photographing the games is also gradually increasing.
According to the International Olympic Committee numbers released this week, of the 691 accredited press photographers, 18 percent were women. While that number lags far behind the record-setting 44.7 percent of female athletes, the number is an uptick from the 15 percent of female photographers at the 2024 Paris games and the 13 percent at the 2022 Beijing games.
While the numbers mark a slow increase of women in sports photography, the change hasn’t gone unnoticed. At one of the team figure skating medal presentations, seven out of the eight photographers in attendance were women.
Article continues belowWhen photographer Danielle Earl tweeted a photo of the largely female pool of photographers – including a comment on the lone male in the group that he had never seen an event like that in his 13 Olympics – the post went viral. “This is my third Olympics, and the first day that I walked into this venue, I noticed right away,” she said.
“I think it’s really important to have people who are passionate about each sport driving the stories about each sport, but it is also important to have women who are employed full-time to cover sports,” said photographer Melanie Heaney, who started photographing figure skating nearly 20 years ago.
Heaney noted that figure skating has more women represented in the media than in traditional sports that are dominated by men. “Especially at the highest levels, at the Olympics, there haven’t been a large percentage of women working in sports photography.”
Photographing the Olympics is a position that often comes with prestige, as only a limited number of media accreditations are given out for the games. Looking at the numbers tends to offer hints at global trends for women in sports photography.
Notably, the number of local photographers at Milano Cortina was 33 percent female.
Out of the entire press pool, 25 percent were women. Photographers are one of the categories with the lowest number of female representatives, above local journalists (11 percent) and technicians (16 percent). The media fields with the highest number of women at the games are press attaché (43 percent) and support staff (40 percent).
“You can do it if you try it. I started when I was 14 years old,” Earl said. “You just keep going, practicing, making good connections, talking to people, being friendly and kind, I think that makes a big difference.”
The 2026 Winter Olympics notably had several mothers celebrating medals with their children – a sentiment that carried over to the press pit, too. “For me personally, being able to excel in my career makes me a better mom,” said Heaney, who has two young daughters. “It makes me more confident, and it makes me proud of who I am as a person. That makes me a good role model for my girls.”
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