LGBT Team GB stars Kate Richardson-Walsh and Nicola Adams nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year
Married lesbian hockey champ Kate Richardson-Walsh has been nominated for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.
She is nominated for the honour alongside out bisexual boxer Nicola Adams.
The LGBT athletes are nominated the year after
Heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury was up for the ‘personality’ award last year – despite claiming that homosexuality and paedophilia will bring about the apocalypse.
The boxer has simultaneously stood by his comments and denied being homophobic – while also claiming that sex with children was legalised by a fictional ‘Gay Rights Act 1977‘.
Despite criticism, the BBC refused to back down – with Director-General Tony Hall insisting the matter must be left up to public vote.
Kate Richardson-Walsh and her wife Helen Richardson-Walsh became the first gay, married couple to compete together at this year’s Rio Olympics.
The hockey players became the first married couple to play together on the same team at the Olympics.
The pair helped Great Britain achieve victory, as they won the match over Australia, 2-1.
Adams at Rio successfully defended her Olympic title by winning gold.
In 2012 she topped the Independent on Sunday Pink List of most influential LGBT figures in Britain.
She told Marie Claire: “I worried about how everyone would react, so I used to say I was single, rather than say I was with a girl. I felt like I was lying all the time. I didn’t like living like that so, in the end, I thought, ‘Well, this is who I am. It’s not as if I can stop it.’”
History was made again last night, when a lesbian couple got engaged at the Rio Games – the first to do so.
This year’s Olympic games featured a record number of out LGBT athletes, with an estimated 42 LGBT athletes set to compete.
The full list of nominees is available below:
Nicola Adams – Boxing
Kate Richardson-Walsh – Hockey
Gareth Bale – Football
Alistair Brownlee – Triathlon
Sophie Christiansen – Equestrian
Kadeena Cox – Athletics/Cycling
Mo Farah – Athletics
Jason Kenny – Cycling
Laura Kenny – Cycling.
Andy Murray – Tennis
Adam Peaty – Swimming
Nick Skelton – Equestrian
Dame Sarah Storey – Cycling
Jamie Vardy – Football
Max Whitlock – Gymnastics
Danny Willett – Golf
