Team LGBT+ is already racking up wins on first day of Winter Olympics
Team LGBT+ is already racking up the wins at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, and it’s barely past the start of the games.
The 2022 games are the queerest yet with at least 35 publicly out LGBT+ athletes vying for the gold. It’s double the number of openly LGBT+ athletes who competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Team LGBT+ already had its first win of the Winter Olympics before the opening ceremony even commenced.
Team GB’s Bruce Mouat and his mixed curling duo partner Jennifer Dodds swept the ice with a 9-5 victory over Sweden on the opening night of the round robin sessions.
Mouat, who is the publicly out athlete competing in Olympic curling, said the win was a “great start”, but they will be “trying to improve” for later matches. He explained that this was especially important as Sweden will be “at the top of the table at the end of the week”.
The Scottish curler added that hearing a group of bagpipers play music as he and Dodds entered Beijing’s Ice Cube was thrilling.
“We saw them outside the venue a couple of days ago so we knew they were here and were excited,” Mouat said. “They did not disappoint.”
The pair narrowly lost to Switzerland during day two of the round robin session with a final result of 8-7. But Mouat and Dodds came back swinging on Friday (4 February) with a one-point victory over Australia.
Team LGBT+ also dominated in another ice sport as out women’s hockey star Alex Carpenter helped Team USA secure victory on Thursday (3 February).
Carpenter, who recently got engaged to her fiancée Steph Klein, scored two crucial goals in a preliminary ice hockey match against Finland. Her teammate Kendall Coyne Schofield also scored two goals, helping the US achieve a 5-2 victory over the Finnish team.
Carpenter told USA Network that she had an “unbelievable” cross-ice pass from Kelly Panneck, which helped her score one of the goals.
“For a second I didn’t even realise it was on my stick,” she recalled. “It was a great job coming in by Kelly there to give me a great feed.”
Sadly, the US women’s ice hockey team also suffered a devastating blow after assistant captain Brianna Decker suffered a leg injury that will keep her off the ice for the duration of the Olympics.
