The "modern" Olympics, which began in 1896, did not include women, founder Pierre de Coubertin being of the opinion that a woman's "organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks." No wonder it took until 1984 for women to be allowed to run the Olympics' signature event, the marathon. No organisms were shocked.
This year in Sydney there will be two more signs that these aren't the Victorian Olympics. For the first time, women will compete in weight lifting and the pole vault, once thought of as two of the highest-testosterone events of the Summer Games. Poised to make Olympic...