Louganis was long rumored to be gay, but didn’t come out publicly until the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Gay Games: "Welcome to the Gay Games,” Louganis said to the crowd. In more recent years, athletes have waited to come out until after their time in competition was over, including figure skaters Johnny Weir and Brian Boitano and American diver Greg Louganis. German runner Otto Peltzer, for instance, competed in the 19 Olympics, but was arrested by the Nazis in 1934 for his homosexuality and was later sent to the concentration camps. LGBT journalists and historians, including Zeigler and Tony Scupham-Bilton, have catalogued the many Olympians who were homosexual but competed in a time before being “out” was safe and acceptable. “When everyone had telephoned their story and discussions broke out in many languages around the bar, opinion began to emerge that it was who was normal and that it was we who were abnormal,” wrote Christopher Brasher, a reporter for The Observer, in his coverage that year. There, in a fiery, unflinching athletic spectacle, Curry abandoned his usual lively routine of skips and hops for a stern technical masterpiece, making him the first openly gay athlete to perform on the Olympic stage. at the time.)īut even though the competition was over for Curry, custom had it that medal winners were expected to appear in exhibition performances. “Do you think that what I did yesterday was not athletic?” (It should be noted as well that homosexual acts were outlawed in the U.K. Curry acknowledged that the rumors about his sexuality were true, but when journalists asked prurient questions betraying the era’s misconceptions about homosexuality and masculinity, Curry fought back: “I don’t think I lack virility, and what other people think of me doesn’t matter,” he said. They cornered the skater in a press conference to grill him on matters most personal, according to Bill Jones’s Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry. Just not exactly during competition.Įnglish figure skater John Curry had barely come off the high of winning gold at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, when reporters caught wind of his sexuality from an article published in the International Herald Tribune.
![gus kentworthy gay pride apparel gus kentworthy gay pride apparel](https://typeset-beta.imgix.net/elite-daily/2017/06/12143009/meundies-gus-kenworthy.jpg)
![gus kentworthy gay pride apparel gus kentworthy gay pride apparel](https://www.pride.com/sites/default/files/2018/04/12/040-miami-pride-2018.jpg)
1,350 athletes competed.īut it was more than a decade earlier when an openly gay athlete first performed in the Olympic Games.
Gus kentworthy gay pride apparel professional#
(King promptly lost her all her professional endorsements, but later said she only wished that she had come out sooner.) And in 1982, former Olympian Tom Waddell – who would die from AIDS at the height of the epidemic five years later – helped found the first Gay Games for LGBT athletes. Seven years earlier, tennis star Billie Jean King was famously outed when a lawsuit filed by a former lover led her to publicly admit to having a lesbian affair. Indeed, by the time Dover came out on the international stage, it was clear that gay athletes were competing and winning in all levels of professional sports. You just have to spend one day in the housing, the gyms, or at dinner to realize we're all over." "After six Olympics, I know they're in every sport. "I wish that all gay athletes would come out in all disciplines – football, baseball, the Olympics, whatever," Dover has said.
![gus kentworthy gay pride apparel gus kentworthy gay pride apparel](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/ab/6c/11ab6c372b0e595125b2a090944e9e40.jpg)
It was Dover’s sixth time representing the United States at the Olympics during his second Games, in 1988, Dover came out, becoming the first openly gay athlete to compete in the modern Olympics. There are gay role models at every turn – on television, on local sports, and in our communities.”Įven so, the last time that the United States sent an openly gay man to any Olympic Games was in 2004, when equestrians Guenter Seidel and Robert Dover won bronze in team dressage. Now it’s a reality in Birmingham, Alabama. “Two men getting married wasn’t even a possibility when we started Outsports. “The atmosphere in the country has changed dramatically,” says Cyd Zeigler, who co-founded Outsports, a news website that highlights the stories of LGBT athletes, in 1999. But there’s one thing Rippon won’t be hiding – this year, he and freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy will become the first openly gay American men to ever compete in the Winter Olympics. He hides the technical difficulty of every jump and spin with head-flips and a commanding gaze, a performer as well as an athlete. His dramatic, sharp movements – and facial expressions to match–emulate those of a professional dancer, at once complementing and contradicting his smooth, unfettered movement along the ice. Watching figure skater Adam Rippon compete, it’s easy to forget that he’s on skates.