About the Author: Melanne Verveer serves as the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State.

There’s been a lot of talk about how the London Olympics will best be remembered as the Women’s Olympics. Not only because of the individual performances of gymnast Gabby Douglas, or swimmer Missy Franklin, or heptathlete Jessica Ennis, but because of the collective achievements of women who participated in these London Games.

The statistics are amazing: Two thirds of the gold medals, and more than half of all medals won by Team USA, were won by American women. And this was despite the fact that women were eligible for 30 fewer medals than the men! The American women did not stand alone in leading their countries to the top of the medal tables. Women from China and Russia (#2 and #3 behind the U.S. in the total medal count), also took home more medals than their male counterparts.

Forty-four percent of all athletes at the games were women, and with the… more »