Megan Rapinoe and her teammates are on track to qualify for the Olympics, where they would defend their gold medal. While the men’s football is competed by the under-23s, with the help of the odd elder statesman, the women’s game sees the very best out for the Olympics.

Outside of that, there’s America’s Simone Biles, so dominant in gymnastics, and Katie Ledecky, who has become similarly fearsome in the pool, plus Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, who beat Ledecky over 400m at the worlds last year.

Even younger athletes are set to shine. Britain’s Sky Brown should compete in skateboarding against several other preteens from her homeland of Japan. Slovenian Janja Garnbret should dominate the women’s climbing, another new event this year.

The veterans are not done yet. American Alysson Felix is going for a 10th medal, Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is another dominant player on the track, as is relative newcomer Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas.

There are many more whose stories will impress this summer in events from beach volleyball to shooting. More than ever, in fact.

Tokyo 2020 is spreading the message that they have improved gender equality. Good on them. It will be the highest number of women competing and the highest number of women’s events, with several teams, athletes and events added at the expense of men. This year should see a record high of women’s participation at 48.8 per cent.

Could Tokyo 2020 be the mother of all Olympics?

This year Ledecky will get to swim in the newly introduced 1,500m, an event where she has the nine fastest times in history and is 30 seconds ahead of the competition, but for road cycling there are nearly double the male competitors than women.

Things are improving. We are a world away from the 1900 Games in Paris, the first Olympics to feature a woman. Helene de Pourtales made history by becoming the first woman to compete and the first to win gold, as part of the winning 1-2 ton sailing team. She was one of 22 women competing in Paris – just 2.2 per cent.

Still, it’s not as if the weight has been lifted. At Rio four years ago the US sent more women than men but there were 161 gold medals for men and 136 for women. There is clearly more than 25 medals to go in creating true equality.

Even in Rio, instances of sexism in the media’s reporting of the Games was rife.

Every day seemed to offer a new low. Andy Murray famously put the BBC’s John Inverdale in his place.

“You’re the first person to ever win two Olympic tennis gold medals, that’s an extraordinary feat, isn’t it?” Inverdale asked the Wimbledon champion.

“Well to defend the singles title,” Murray said smirking, “I think Venus and Serena have won about four each.”

Women’s sport gets overlooked at best, at worst its much worse.

When Ledecky set a new world record in the 800m – becoming the first woman to win the 200, 400 and 800m golds since 1968 – Michael Phelps winning silver was still the lead story.

Athlete protest ban at odds with Olympic history

Fellow US Olympian Corey Cogdell, who won bronze in Rio, was described as the wife of a Chicago Bears lineman. Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu, a serial gold medallist, saw her husband and coach described as “the man responsible” after her 400m individual medley world record.

There’s also the endless comparisons with male athletes – the “female Michael Phelps” – and that’s not to mention the use of “girls” for female athletes.

Thankfully, some of the male athletes did what their majority male media counterparts could not and pointed this out. Canadian canoeist Adam van Koeverden wrote in his blog that “we can do better” after fellow Canuck Adam Kreek claimed tennis star Eugenie Bouchard was more interested in selfies than sport. He also pointed out the media headlines around the appearance of swimming gold medallist Penny Oleksiak and the headline “Shiny New Penny”.

Has the penny dropped four years on?

We can live in hope but that is a dangerous thing. When the logo for the Paris 2024 Games was unveiled last year it featured an image of a woman likened to a “shampoo advert”.

Hosts Japan have had their own low points in recent years.

China faces missing out on all men’s team events in Tokyo

In 2015, the government’s top spokesman asked women to contribute by having more children. “I am hoping that mothers will contribute to their country by feeling like they want to have more children. Please have many children,” chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told Fuji TV.

It was only two years ago the Kasumigaseki Country Club, the venue for the Olympics golf event, accepted women as full members.

Studies have shown that more women watch the Games than men so it’s high time we served that audience.

We can do better.