Sports
Going for the Gold
Organizers hoping for strong turnout for Cleveland Gay Games
Chris Coates, a D.C. track athlete planning to compete in the Gay Games next summer in Ohio. (Photo courtesy Kevin Majoros)
It has been more than four years since Washington lost the Gay Games 9 bid to Cleveland/Akron and the sting of that loss has faded. Now it’s time to seriously start thinking about your plans to go to Cleveland for the Gay Games to be held Aug. 9-16.
Cleveland? Akron?
I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling in the LGBT sports community locally and nationally about the location of the Games. People are asking, “Why would I want to go to Cleveland or Akron?”
What’s in it for you and why should you attend? For those of you who’ve participated at the Games in the past, you know the reasons. For those of you who’ve not, I will supply a few.
The LGBT sports movement has been experiencing a great amount of support and progression over the past few years. The media will be in Cleveland on a large scale and this is our opportunity to shine as athletes and support our community.
I remember in 2006 when USA Today ran a cover story about the Chicago Gay Games and I was pleasantly surprised. During and after the Games, I didn’t see a lot of coverage. I think that will be different this time because the LGBT sports community now has a larger presence.
Paris recently won the bid for Gay Games 10 in 2018. If the Cleveland/Akron Games fail, there will be no Paris. While it’s true that the Gay Games received a $250,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation as a presenting sponsor (a first for the Games), if attendance is poor, it will hamper the efforts to fund the Paris Games.
According to Les Johnson, a Federation of Gay Games board member, Cleveland and Akron are excited about us coming.
“Washington D.C. has big things happening here all the time,” Johnson says. “The Gay Games are a really big thing for both Cleveland and Akron and they are looking forward to hosting us.”
There will be more than 35 sports contested in Cleveland and Akron and the sports venues are top notch, from the Cleveland State aquatic facility to the Firestone Stadium softball venue to the University of Akron track & field stadium. This is an opportunity to compete at well-run facilities with experienced officials.
You might be thinking that Cleveland doesn’t have a large gay scene. That’s true, but what do you think happens when 10,000 LGBT athletes from more than 65 countries invade a town for eight days? It becomes very gay.
You’ll see the LGBT community in force at restaurants, bars, tourist attractions and especially on public transport. At the past few Games I’ve met most of my cohorts for the week on public transport.
One of the popular features from the Cologne Games in 2010 and a personal favorite of mine were the athlete villages. Every day after competing, thousands of athletes and supporters converge on the villages for music, dancing, drinking, food and people watching. Dinner with the Icelandic swim team, beers with the Irish soccer team — what more can you ask for?
Another thing to be excited about is marching into the opening ceremonies with 10,000 athletes from all over the world. The Cleveland/Akron Games will open at the Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland. The Arena is home to the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Assocaiton, the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League and the Cleveland Gladiators of the Arena Football League.
Team D.C. is expecting to send more than 400 athletes from our LGBT sports community. Team D.C. will once again coordinate the uniforms and will march in together representing Washington behind the District flag and the Team D.C. banner. We always get a huge response.
Based on what I’ve heard so far, we will be represented in the sports of swimming, water polo, softball, soccer, flag football, tennis, running, triathlon, bowling, cycling, basketball, dancesport, open water swimming, volleyball and track & field.
The closing ceremonies will be held at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland and represents the last chance to hang out with all the new friends you made during the week.
Team D.C. is offering a discounted registration price for the Gay Games which ends Jan. 8. The code is “teamdc.”
What are you waiting for? Eight days of sports, music and world culture are calling your name.
Sports
US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey
Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday
The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.
The Olympics will end on Sunday.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
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