The exhibition portrays all stages of women's struggle for equal participation in the prestigious global sporting event. Divided into six chronological and thematic units, it follows over 130 years of contemporary society through the stories of legendary women with unique lives, the exhibition's announcement says.
"Women and the Olympic Games have long had contradictory and even hostile destinies. Virtually excluded from the Olympic movement during its modern renaissance at the end of the 19th century, female athletes took decades to gradually take their rightful place in sports in general, and at the Olympic Games in particular," it notes.
The exhibition tries to highlight as many women as possible who played important roles in sports and social evolution, including Alice Milliat, the creator of the World Women's Games in 1922, great French and foreign athletes such as Christine Caron, Marie-José Pérec, Laura Manaudou, and more recently Clarissa Agbegnenou and Simone Biles.
In Paris, for the first time it is expected that 50 per cent of the 10,500 registered athletes from 206 countries will be women.
France is hosting the Summer Olympic Games for the third time in history, after those in Paris in 1900 and 1924, and the Paralympic Games for the first time.
The exhibition will be open until 18 August.