LGBTQ athletes dominating Olympic sports: A look towards Beijing’s Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics kick off in Beijing on February 4. With the pandemic still raging and all the political and diplomatic boycotts flying around many question marks were raised regarding just how these Olympics Games would play out.
Despite Western governments instituting diplomatic boycotts in an attempt to protest China’s alleged human rights abuses, said countries, including the United States, are still sending their athletes to compete. Due to the pandemic, China is limiting spectators to those who already reside in mainland China only, but the games are definitely charging ahead.
The Tokyo Olympics that were held in 2021 turned out to be quite an athletic display of brilliance for the queers of the world, and all eyes are on Beijing to see if there is a repeat performance by LGBTQ athletes.
Ice speed skater Brittany Bowe is the first openly gay, out competitor to be announced as part of Team USA and we’re looking closely to see who else joins the ranks. Bowe currently holds a bronze medal for the 1000-meter ice speed skating event from the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, four gold medals from other speed skating championships, a gold medal from the Pan American Games, and eight gold medals from World Championships in inline speed skating.
At the Tokyo Olympics held last year, 182 out LGBTQ athletes from thirty different countries competed in thirty-four of the forty-six sporting events. Fifty-six medals were earned by LGBTQ athletes despite seventy of the 205 nations still imposing criminalization laws on matters of homosexuality and other LGBTQ issues.
Despite the Winter Olympics being a “no-go zone” for political statements, many of the athletes that competed in Tokyo managed to skate around the rules and make their statements about their community anyway. Folks are wondering, with China’s tumultuous relationship with its own LGBTQ population, will the same happen in Beijing?
Multiple human rights groups strongly believe that the Olympics should not be held in countries that openly discriminate against LGBTQ people, or have questionable human rights records in general. The upcoming FIFA World Cup (to be held in Qatar) and the Gay Games (to be held in Hong Kong) are also being protested.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics just a couple of weeks away now, all eyes are turning to China. Will our LGBTQ athletes rep the community loudly and proudly as they did in Tokyo? We can’t wait to see what happens.
Out LGBTQ Winter Olympics competitors
Brittany Bowe isn’t the only out LGBTQ competitor heading to Beijing. We compiled a quick list of all the athletes repping team LGBTQ next month. Note: This list has been updated. Date: 02/04/22.
- Timothy LeDuc – USA – figure skating
- Brittany Bowe – USA – speedskating
- Jason Brown – USA – figure skating
- Andrew Blaser – USA – skeleton
- Ireen Wüst – Netherlands – speedskating
- Guillaume Cizeron – France – figure skating
- Kévin Aymoz – France – figure skating
- Amber Glenn – USA – figure skating
- Paul Poirier – Canada – figure skating
- Eric Radford – Canada – figure skating
- Bruce Mouat – Great Britain – curling
- Belle Brockhoff – Australia – snowboarding
- Gus Kenworthy – Great Britain – skiing
- Megan Banks – Canada – biathlon
- Filippo Ambrosini – Italy – figure skating
- Lewis Gibson – Great Britain – figure skating
- Simon Proulx Sénécal – Armenia – figure skating
- Brianne Jenner – Canada – ice hockey
- Erin Ambrose – Canada – ice hockey
- Ebba Berglund – Sweden- ice hockey
- Alex Carpenter – USA – ice hockey
- Emily Clark – Canada – ice hockey
- Mélodie Daoust – Canada – ice hockey
- Anna Kjellbin – Sweden – ice hockey
- Aneta Lédlová – Czech Republic – ice hockey
- Jamie Lee Rattray – Canada – ice hockey
- Jill Saulnier – Canada – ice hockey
- Ronja Savolainen – Sweden – ice hockey
- Micah Zandee-Hart – Canada – ice hockey
- Kim Meylemans – Belgium – skeleton
- Nicole Silveira – Brazil – skeleton
- Daniela Iraschko-Stolz – Austria – ski jumping
- Makayla Gerken Schofield – Great Britain – skiing
- Belle Brockhoff – Australia – snowboarding
- Sarka Pancochova – Czech Republic – snowboarding
If we left anyone off the list, drop us a comment and let us know!
