FEBRUARY 15 - OLYMPICS MINISTER Tessa Jowell (pictured) has today launched a drive for equality in sports for the London 2012 Olympics, including women being allowed to compete in heavyweight wrestiling and men in synchronised swimming.

 

She has written to senior British officials calling on them to lead a campaign to help them end "gender  discrepancies” in the Olympic and Paralympic rules, which allow men to compete in 40 more events than women.

 

She said: “It’s wrong that women can’t compete in as many events as men.

 

“Women’s sport has come on in leaps and bounds so it’s high time there was equal opportunity at the Olympics.”

 

In a letter to Baroness Campbell, who chairs UK Sport, Jowell and Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, said the Government had an “obligation to GB athletes to pursue equality”.

 

Jowell's call will find plenty of support from Victoria Pendleton, the Olympic sprint champion who warned last October that London would face embarrassment if female cyclists could not take part in the same number of events as their male counterparts.

 

Pendleton won one of just one of three titles up for grabs for the women in the velodrome, while male riders were able to compete in seven events.

 

Pendleton told insidethegames: "It will be an embarrassment for London 2012 if there isn't an equal number of events for men and women at the Games.

 

"They have to be the same.

 

"It's an embarrassment in this day and age that there is a discrepancy between male and female events.

 

"We're not living in the dark ages here."

 

UK Sport will work with sports governing bodies to put pressure on the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to end the discrimination by 2012.

 

Changes to Olympic sports are in the sole gift of the IOC and decisions about which sports to include are usually taken seven years in advance.

 

The line-up can be changed, however, if there is an agreement between sport federations and Olympic chiefs.

 

Besides cycling, women are barred from competing in boxing and there are big gender differences in the number of wrestling, shooting, rowing and canoeing.

 

Men are excluded from synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.

 

But with the number of gold medal events capped by the IOC at 302 if there are changes to sports like track cycling and synchronised swimming it would mean dropping existing events to accomodate them.

 

UK Sport has welcomed Jowell’s move, but Yvonne Ball of the British Wrestling Association said it was highly unlikely women would want to compete in heavyweight wrestling.

 

She said: “I can’t see there will be enough over-21s in the frame to compete at Olympic level."