The telephone survey of 1,025 randomly selected respondents in June found considerable interest on the part of women in gymnastics, swimming and aerobics. For all three, women were considerably more interested than men. The survey asked:

"The Summer Olympic games will open in Atlanta next month. If you had to pick one, what is your favorite Summer Olympic event?"

Note that this was open-ended. We did not offer a list of sports. The respondent had to think of one himself or herself. And four-fifths of our respondents could do so.

For those that made a choice, the four leading sports were track, 21 percent; swimming, 20; gymnastics, 19 percent, and basketball, 12 percent.

Those figures are hardly surprising, but the gender differences were striking. While 30 percent of the men picked track, only 13 percent of the women did. And 30 percent of the women picked gymnastics, while only 7 percent of the men did. Swimming was the choice of 26 percent of the women and 13 percent of the men. Basketball was the first choice of 18 percent of the men, but only 6 percent of the women.

The point, then, is not to decrease coverage of track and basketball. That is what the men are interested in. But to reach women you need to increase coverage of gymnastics and swimming, sports that are not extensively covered by most newspapers.

We also asked respondents how frequently they engaged in various physical activities.

We found that women are much more likely to engage in aerobic exercises than men. Thirty percent said they did so at least once a week, while only 18 percent of the men did. Women also are more likely to walk than men.

On the other hand, almost twice as many men as women lift weights once a week or more and nearly four times as many men as women play softball, basketball or football once a week or more. Men also are more than twice as likely to play tennis regularly as women.

It is obvious that what women are looking for in sports is different from what men are looking for.

Every sports editor needs to ask whether women will find coverage of these areas interesting. That is the way to attract women to the sports page.

We are not talking only about the Olympics here, either. Swimming and gymnastics have moved into high schools in recent years. They also are significant community club sports and both are seen on television. For the alert sports staff, they are out there waiting to be covered.

Stempel is a distinguished professor at the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service.