A campaign is being launched today to exclude Saudi Arabia from the 2012 Olympics unless the kingdom allows women to compete. It is one of the last countries in the world not to let women take part.

Female sporting activity in Saudi Arabia is generally discouraged on religious grounds and local events involving women are sometimes banned, though attitudes have begun to change. A few years ago the Saudi Shura Council issued regulations for women's sports clubs but female participation in international sporting events is still strongly opposed by religious elements.

Under the slogan "No women, no play" (which echoes Bob Marley's song), the campaign is being organised by Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-basedInstitute for Gulf Affairs. It is seeking to persuade the International Olympic Committee to ban Saudi Arabia from the London games on the grounds of discrimination against women.

Other countries with strict Islamic rules have found ways to allow female participation. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, half a dozen Egyptian women, three Iranians, and Afghan and a Yemeni all competed wearing hijab. This can place them at a disadvantage in some events, though in 2008 a female sprinter from Bahrain ran in specially-designed "aerodynamic" Islamic garb.

Married women were originally barred from the ancient Olympic games in Greece, though virgins and prostitutes were allowed to watch. In 392BC, however, a Spartan princess became the first female Olympic champion when she won a chariot race.

When the Olympics were revived in 1896 women were also barred at first on the grounds that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect". Four years later, they were allowed to compete in ballooning, croquet and golf. 

In 1912, women competed in swimming events for the first time, though none of them were from the US because American rules required all female competitors to wear long skirts.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 31 July 2010.