Sports
Speedskater Irene Wüst becomes first LGBTQ Olympian to win a gold medal in Beijing
Dutch athlete is first Olympian to win an individual gold medal in 5 Winter Games and first out medalist in Beijing
If the 34 out LGBTQ Olympians had their own team at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, then Irene Wüst of the Netherlands would be its de facto leader. The Dutch athlete skated her way into the history books Monday with a record-setting finish in the 1,500-meter speedskating race: 1 minute 53.28 seconds, barely edging out the previous world record holder, Miho Takagi of Japan, by less than half a second.
Wüst, who is out as bisexual, is the first LGBTQ Olympian to win a gold medal in Beijing and the most decorated out Olympian ever.
Also, at 35, she is the world’s oldest gold medalist speedskater, the first Olympic athlete to win an individual gold medal in five Winter Games, and this sixth gold makes her the most decorated Olympic speedskater in history.
OLYMPIC CHAMPION!!! 🥇🧡🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/i7Z66o6B8g
— Ireen Wüst (@Ireenw) February 7, 2022
“This is just amazing,” Wüst told Reuters. “There’s a lot of different emotions going through my mind right now. I mean, it’s just bizarre that I was able to pull it off once again… I just have no words for it. There’s something magical that gets to me when it comes down to the Games. There’s something at the Games that brings out the best in me.”
This trip to China is her sixth Olympics, a journey that began when she won gold in the 3,000 meters and bronze in the 1,500 meters events in Turin in 2006.
“The first time is the easiest one to win,” Wüst told The New York Times. “Winning for the fifth time is the hardest.”
She’s now collected 12 medals in all, six of them gold, including those won in Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018.
“Words can’t describe her class. I mean, she’s the greatest of all time as her performance shows,” out American Olympian Brittany Bowe told Reuters. Bowe was the only out LGBTQ athlete to be selected by any nation as a flag bearer for the opening ceremonies. “Another Olympic gold medal in Olympic record fashion. I’m honored to have competed against her for so many years and even more so to call her a friend.” Bowe finished 10th.
Wüst told The Times she felt calm and had confidence after qualifying at home in the Netherlands, the world’s top speedskating nation. She said that feeling stayed with her through this week.
“When it’s really important, I can show something extra,” said Wüst. “And that’s the feeling I had when I woke up.”
With the victory over Miho Takagi of Japan, who took silver, she has surpassed the record held by famous Olympians Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis and Al Oerter.
Making history “means a lot,” Wüst told reporters after the race, but reality hadn’t quite set in yet. “Ask me this question again in 10 days,” she joked. “I’m an emotional mess in my head.”
The Olympian did confirm speculation she plans to retire after this season. Come summer, after many delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wüst is engaged to marry her girlfriend, Letitia de Jong.
What’s next? Based on what she told The Times, she’s no longer focused on the time clock on the oval, but the biological clock.
“I always say age is just a number,” she said. “But I’m 35, and I really want to have children, so at some point you have to quit.”
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.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
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