Sunday, January 21, 2018

Americas first openly gay male Winter Olympian is also pretty damn funny too.

Sponsored by  SmartQuotes - Your daily smart quote 
=>

Adam Rippon just made U.S. Olympics history.

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images.

When the 28-year-old heads to South Korea, he'll be the first openly gay U.S. male athlete to compete in the Winter Games.

Can he get a hell yeah?

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images.

Other male LGBTQ athletes have competed in the winter games in years past — notably, fellow figure skaters Johnny Weir and Brian Boitano — but none had been open about their sexual orientation heading into the competition.

Rippon may not be alone in sharing the title either.

Openly gay freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy could make it to Pyeongchang too.

Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images.

Kenworthy, who came out publicly to ESPN in 2015, will find out soon whether he'll make the cut for South Korea in February. He represented Team USA in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

It matters that openly LGBTQ athletes are representing the U.S. on the world stage. And that's not lost on Rippon.

As he explained to NPR (emphasis added):

"Growing up, I really didn't have a lot of role models. And I said, if I was ever given the chance and the platform, I would share my story. ... I don't really care what other people think of me. I'm able to go out there and I'm really able to be, like, unabashedly myself. And I want somebody who's young, who's struggling, who's not sure if it's OK if they are themselves to know that it's OK."

Rippon isn't all serious business though.

In fact, he's often quite the jokester with his 54,000 Twitter followers.

Whether he's discussing his, er ... physical assets...

What it's like to be a gay athlete...

Or using familial bias to sway the judges...

Rippon certainly isn't afraid to be himself — in the rink or outside of it.

And as if blazing one trail wasn't enough, Rippon's age is also making Olympics history this year.

According to The Washington Post, 28-year-old Rippon will be the oldest U.S. figure skater to make a debut in the games since 1936.

He's ready to use his seniority to the team's advantage when it comes to mentoring fellow Americans Nathan Chen, 18, and Vincent Zhou, 17: "I always sort of feel like a leader or a big brother. I want the best for the both of them as we head into this Olympic Games.”

Nathan Chen (middle-left) and Vincent Zhou (middle-right) will join Adam Rippon (right) on Team USA Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images.

Making headlines for his age may be a bit less exciting than making LGBTQ history. But Rippon's happy to make light of the decade of experience he has over Chen and Zhou. “I’m so excited that my two sons are doing so well," he quipped to The Post about his teammates. "I’m honored to be their father."

The opening ceremony to Pyeongchang 2018 is set for Friday, Feb. 9.

More From this publisher : HERE ; This post was curated using : TrendingTraffic

=>
***********************************************
Originally Published Here: Americas first openly gay male Winter Olympian is also pretty damn funny too.
************************************
=>

This article was searched, compiled, delivered and presented using  BuletViralTraffic 
=>>

Americas first openly gay male Winter Olympian is also pretty damn funny too. was originally posted by Viral News 1
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)