Paralympian Dimitri Pavadé comes out as gay: ‘Embrace yourself as you are’
Paralympian Dimitri Pavadé comes out as gay after competing in Paris 2024 (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Paralympic long jumper Dimitri Pavadé has come out as gay after competing in the Paris 2024 Games.
The 35-year-old French Paralympian, who finished fourth in the Men’s Long Jump T64 event on 4 September, came out in an Instagram post after competing in his event.
Stating that he was able to be an “icon” for people with disabilities, the athlete explained that he also wanted to embrace his sexuality despite the “judgements” of society.
“Yes I am SMALL, mixed race, ONE-LEGGED, and to top it off, GAY!!!!!! The person I am and like others never had a choice to make, so stop with your pitiful speeches and unreasonable judgements because you will never change the world,” Dimitri Pavadé wrote in French on Instagram over the weekend.
“The most important thing in my eyes today is that the people who matter to me love me for the person that I am, and not for an image that I could have created, in this overly judgmental society.”
Explaining that he hoped to “give strength and courage” to people in the closet and to “high-level athletes who do not dare to live out in the open”, he added that if “people don’t accept you as you are then they are not worthy of your LOVE”.
“Disability is not meant to be hidden or ashamed of, it is the same for your sexual orientation, so embrace yourself as you are and remember that you are not alone, life is extremely short and there are so many beautiful things are offered to us that we cannot deprive ourselves of,” he wrote.
LGBTQ+ athletes at the Paris Paralympics are thought to have collectively won the most medals they ever have, with “Team LGBTQ+” bringing in a total of 28 medals this year. If all of the queer athletes competed as “Team LGBTQ+” in the Paris games, they would have come in at 11th place.
As well as an impressive number of medals, Team LGBTQ+ also brought plenty of beautiful queer moments to viewers, including a proposal.
On 2 September, Paralympic triathlete Brenda Osnaya Alvarez proposed to her partner and coach Jessie González as she reached the finish line in Paris. After completing the women’s PTWC (permanent wheelchair user) triathlon, the Team Mexico athlete held up a sign in Spanish which read, “¿Te quieres casar conmigo? [Do you want to marry me?]”.
González obviously said yes, writing in an Instagram post: “What an honour to be your coach, what an honour to be a part of your interdisciplinary team, what an honour to be your future wife!”
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