God forbid the Olympics get dragged into the 21st century.
There are a lot of bad changes that the Olympic champion in Fencing has made. But cutting the hosting costs (the IOC just cannot afford another disastrous series of white elephants like Athens 2004 and Sochi 2014 left behind), modernizing the Olympic program and, yes, focussing on gender equality are all reforms that were needed.
How those reforms were made I have a lot of issues with, but I really think you need to have your head in the sand to believe those reforms were optional. If anything it took the IOC too long to prioritize those things.