Little did the Australian women's rowing eight know they would be tipping the Australian Olympic team into the history books. As of Tuesday, they didn't even know they would be there at all.Yet the trickle-down impact of the Russian doping scandal has seen them get the news they had craved. They are off to Rio and so is a national team that, for the first time, has more women than men suiting up for competition.Of the 419 athletes heading to Brazil, 212 are women and 207 are men, making the number 50.6 per cent female. That's a massive increase since London just four years ago, when women made up 45.4 per cent of the overall squad.And much as they did in London, where Anna Meares and Sally Pearson were the headliners, Rio shapes as another Games where Australia's female athletes stand to shine.That won't be just in the pool, although Cate and Bronte Campbell and Emily Seebohm are some of the country's best chances at gold medals.  
In new events, on the rugby field in particular, fresh faces present new opportunities for rookie Olympians.That women's sport continues to be on a roll should be now come as little surprise, even if the rise and rise of elite women's leagues and competitions in Australia has been a fairly recent phenomenon.Netball may not be an Olympic sport but the ANZ Championship has become a brilliant spectacle that produces a high-quality product worthy of television deals and ticket sales. The looming final, between the Queensland Firebirds and Sydney Swifts, shifted 10,000 tickets in less than half an hour.But at an Olympic level, it's been a decidedly slow burn. Before 1920, only 2.2 per cent of Olympians were women, who competed in hugely restricted events that in many cases took decades to open their arms to both sexes.That's been of particular interest to Professor Wendy Brown, from the University of Queensland's School of Human Movement, who has written a piece for esteemed medical journal The Lancet on gender balance in sport.Brown believes the gender figures in the current team should be considered as a significant milestone, even if there's not swathes of evidence that suggest it will spur everyday Australian girls and women into an Olympic event."If it encourages young people and adolescents to stay in sport, that's a really good thing. We know that a lot of kids, as teenagers, play sport in Australia. But once children leave school and go to university and go through their life stages, they drop out in huge numbers," Brown said."I'm not sure what effect having more women in the Olympics will have. You have a mum at home with a small child, seeing Cate and Bronte Campbell swim may not encourage them to go back to being part of a sport."But it may encourage them to get and keep their kids involved, which is a good thing. As far as being role models for women and girls, I think it is important."Brown uses netball as a prime example of a wildly successful women's sport that has now become entrenched in mainstream sports coverage. In the Olympics, though, the slog has been long and arduous, while the overall gender imbalance looks set to continue."In terms of the Olympics it has been a bit of a boy's club, right back to 1896. It has been a battle for women," Brown said."In 1928 when the first track and field for women took place, there was only five events. In the 800m that year, the same women ran as the 100m. Most of them collapsed. The powers that be used that as a reason not to have them involved."The 800m didn't come back until 1960 and the women didn't run a marathon until 1984. It's been a long battle to get women in there, not so much here in Australia and New Zealand. But in the Middle Eastern countries, teams like Saudi Arabia and Qatar they never even sent women until London."While cultural and religious differences may hold back female participation in certain nations, there's little to suggest the current figures won't become the norm for Australian teams. Boxing has opened its doors for the second Games, while Rugby Sevens has become somewhat of a golden egg for the least popular winter football code.Rugby has worked relentlessly on encouraging girls and women to pick up a ball and try their hand at Sevens after it was given the green light as an Olympic sport, says ARU boss Bill Pulver. Now, they head to Rio as the gold medal favourite."Our women's Sevens team are extraordinary role models for any young girl thinking about picking up a rugby ball. We are certain that any success they have in Rio will have a game-changing effect on the entire landscape of women's sport," Pulver said. "As a young girl considering what sport to play, not only is there an established World Series in Sevens Rugby, there is now the ultimate carrot of becoming an Olympian and having a chance to compete on sport's ultimate stage."