Alice Milliat

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Organiser whose Women's World Games accelerated opportunities for women in international sport.

Alice Joséphine Marie Milliat (née Million; 5 May 1884 – 19 May 1957) was a pioneer of women's sport. Her lobbying on behalf of female athletes led to the accelerated inclusion of more women's events in the Olympic Games. A member of Fémina Sport, a club founded in 1911, Milliat helped form the Fédération Française Sportive Féminine in 1917, becoming treasurer and, in March 1919, its president. In 1921 she helped organise the 1921 Women's World Games, and then the Women's World Games, which ran for four editions from 1922 until 1934. She also managed a French women's association football team that toured the United Kingdom in 1920. On 8 March 2021, a commemorative statue of Milliat was unveiled at the French Olympic Committee's headquarters in Paris.

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