Sports
Local athletes find niche in triathlon community
Sean Maloney, Jorge Alvarez shine despite not feeling particularly athletic
TriOut Multisport. is the LGBT community group under the DC Tri Club umbrella. This week in the Blade’s All Star series, we spotlight the path of two LGBT athletes who have found their niche in the triathlon community.
Like many triathletes, Sean Maloney has a list of goals. This year, he’ll compete in his third full Ironman triathlon and hopes to one day be selected for the Kona Ironman World Championship through its Ironman Legacy Program.
He also wants to run a full marathon on all seven continents. Even though he’s marking off sports achievements that many people only dream about, he still says he is not athletic.
“I don’t feel any more athletic now than when I started doing triathlons,” Maloney says. “When I think of athleticism, I think of talent and coordination. I am just a normal guy.”
As a kid in Corning, N.Y., Maloney’s father pushed him to try sports, but none of them stayed with him. He spent two years on the tennis team in high school but says he was more interested in a less rigid sense of masculinity and just being himself.
While attending Binghamton University, he began running at a nearby nature reserve and continued through his graduate work at Syracuse University. After working as a clinical social worker at an LGBT community center in rural Pennsylvania, Maloney moved to D.C. in 2010.
He was only running up to three miles at the time when a spin instructor asked him to run the Annapolis Ten Mile Run. It was his launching pad race and he goes back every year to participate and mark the spot where he got started.
Maloney’s first triathlon was the Carolina Beach Double Sprint in 2014 and there were many lessons along the way.
“I signed up at the YMCA for swim training and couldn’t make it past 12 yards at my first session. When I saw the five-foot swells at the triathlon, I had a panic attack. I didn’t even know how to get past the breakers,” Maloney says. “After I completed the race, the feeling of accomplishment was totally novel to me. It was different and addicting. I did two more triathlons that year including the Cleveland Gay Games.”
Maloney, who works as director of development at Women for Women International, returned to the Gay Games in Paris last year to run the full marathon. Coming up he will be doing the Geneva Musselman sprint triathlon with his father and twin sister, and then completing the half Ironman the next day on his own.
“The triathlon community has given me so much. There are built-in training partners that help you cut through the noise,” Maloney says. “I have found my best friend, a sense of community and a sense of self.”
Jorge Alvarez discovered something in the triathlon community that he didn’t know was inside of him: a competitive sports spirit. Growing up in Venezuela and the United Kingdom, there was a small amount of swimming and tennis, but most of his focus was on playing cello.
His music kept him busy, but he put aside time for running and biking while attending Shepherd University. After moving to D.C. in 2013, he began dating a runner, ran a few 5Ks and then went right for a longer distance taking on the Marine Corps Marathon.
“Running long distances was starting to hurt my knees and I ended up splitting from my boyfriend,” Alvarez says. “I was in a dark place and I needed something positive to keep me busy.”
Alvarez started training on his own for a triathlon and completed his first sprint at the Nation’s Triathlon in 2017. He was hooked and joined TriOut Multisport for race and nutrition advice before moving forward to compete in more triathlons.
“My competitive drive kicked in after that first race when I realized that sports were helping me stay out of that dark place,” Alvarez says. “I love all of it — the discipline, the research, the dedication. It fulfills me and makes me happy.”
Alvarez has many things keeping him busy outside of triathlon training. Along with working as an accountant at a nonprofit, he plays cello with NIH Philharmonia, teaches music to youth and has played in Stonewall Kickball.
And like all competitive athletes, he has sports goals.
“I am aiming to complete a half Ironman this year and would like to try and make the elite team with DC Tri,” he says. “I am proud to be dedicated to my racing. If you work really hard, you can get to a better place.”
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.
Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.
“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”
McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.
Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.
“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.
Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.
Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.
ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.
“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.
The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:
• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.
• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.
• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.
The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.
Sports
‘Heated Rivalry’ stars to participate in Olympic torch relay
Games to take place next month in Italy
“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie will participate in the Olympic torch relay ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics that will take place next month in Italy.
HBO Max, which distributes “Heated Rivalry” in the U.S., made the announcement on Thursday in a press release.
The games will take place in Milan and Cortina from Feb. 6-22. The HBO Max announcement did not specifically say when Williams and Storrie will participate in the torch relay.
The Washington Capitals will host Pride Night on Saturday, Jan. 17, when they host the Florida Panthers at Capital One Arena. A special ticket offer featuring a Pride-themed Capitals rainbow jersey is available at washcaps.com.
Fans are invited to a pre-game Block Party at District E beginning at 5 p.m. The event will feature a performance by the band NovaKane. Specialty happy hour food and beverages will be available, as well as giveaways. There will also be a presence by several local LGBTQ+ community organizations.
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