Olympic Silver Medal Figure Skater: I'm Gay

Having had a daughter who competed in United States Figure Skating Association ("USFSA") competitions, I am all too aware of the pettiness and back stabbings ways of the USFSA and also the homophobia that pressures gay skaters to remain in the closet.Apparently, things in Canada are better and coming out doesn't translate to career suicide. At least that is the opinion of Canadian silver medal winner Eric Radford who came out even as he and his pairs partner, Meagan Duhamel, have their sights on the 2016 Olympics.  Out Sports has details.  Here are excerpts:

  

Eric Radford can already hear it coming.  The Olympic figure skater in the prime of his career knows the stereotypes associated with men in his sport. He's heard it since he was a child when a classmate asked him why his parents forced him to figure skate.

"They don't force me," he told her. "I like it."  That precipitated years of torment by other kids his age in rural Ontario. Not only was he performing in what his peers considered the "gayest" sport of all, he also had a lisp that plagued his childhood.

Fact: No elite figure skater on the world stage has ever come out publicly at the height of his competitive career.

None.

Ever.

Only one - Rudy Galindo in 1996 - did it while still competing at all, retiring from competition after that season.

Sure, Johnny Weir put on a Hello Kitty shirt and Gucci sunglasses and bobbed his head to Christina Aguilera. But not even Weir ever said "I'm gay" publicly until after he had retired from competition (not including his ill-fated "comeback").

It's a scary path to walk for a figure skater. Unlike a sprinter, they are not timed. Unlike a football player, they don't have stats like catches and sacks. A figure skater's success depends on the subjective scores of judges. Those judges are certainly given guidelines. They walk through rigorous instruction on how to judge, and they have deep connections to the sport - An elite international judge won't give a "5" to a "9" performance. But a point here and there? It very well may have cost Weir a medal in 2010.

Plenty of people in the closed circles of figure skating know about his sexual orientation. Despite that, he and skating partner Meagan Duhamel have found incredible success. They were part of the Canadian team that won silver at the Sochi Olympic Games in February. They won bronze in pairs skating at the World Championships in both 2013 and 2014 and are the three-time defending Canadian champions. They earned gold at last week's Grand Prix event in Osaka, Japan, which will send them to the Grand Prix final in Barcelona next week. It was their second win of the year.

Radford has thought about coming out publicly before. Earlier this year, just weeks before the Sochi Winter Olympics, he contacted GLAAD for advice on coming out. The folks there told him it would be an incredible opportunity to send a powerful message of strength from the LGBT community. They were right, and Radford gave it careful consideration. He understood what would happen if he came out just before the Games - He would become a media darling, the proverbial "poster child" for LGBT rights at the Olympics in Russia, where anti-LGBT laws and sentiment were a hot-button issue.

"My concern was that I would be known as 'the gay athlete' if I came out at the Olympics, rather than Eric the medalling figure skater who happens to be gay. And I felt uncomfortable with that title."

Radford was also quite conscious of the warnings about being gay in Russia. 

Unsure of the climate in Sochi and wanting, like so many athletes before him, to be judged on his athleticism and not his sexuality, Radford chose to wait. While the skating community knew whom he was, the public would just have to wait.