Snowing out #LGBT #sport

Well there is snow in the air and the winter sports season is upon us once more, or course earlier in the year we had the Winter Olympics in Sochi under the anti-LGBT administration of Russia. At the time I pointed out the few LGB Winter Olympians that were present.

However, one we didn't know about actually won a medal.

Radford with partner Meagan Duhamel in Sochi

Canadian pairs skater Eric Radford (right) has recently come out as gay, or in his words the ultimate pairs boy as there is no danger of him forming an off-ice relationship with his partner. He told Out magazine:

"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."

The guy is a strong competitor, during the short programme of the 2011 World he finished a routine with blood pouring from his nose after his partner Meagan Duhamel's elbow coming in contact with him. This was from here descent from a twist the first element in the routine. Despite his nose being broken he took part the following day in the free programme and the pair finished 7th.  He and Duhamel have apparently been practising a quad thrown Salchow to unleash this year to improve on their bronze medal in the last two World Championships.

His coming out adds a silver to the medal tally of team LGB from Sochi adding to the 2 golds (one for team) and 3 silvers of Ireen Wüst (NED) in speed skating.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the world of Winter Sport Australia have added a gay man to their bobsleigh team. Rugby player Simon Dunn is currently in Calgary training with the upcoming season and hoping to make the team for 2018 in South Korea.

He told SameSame:

"I love competing in bobsleigh. The adrenaline rush. Using my strengths from rugby and excelling in a different sport. I love representing my country. And I'm also proud of the fact that I'm the first out gay man in the sport to do so!"

He has even been spotted post pictures of himself in his skin suit (see left). Though I think it would be best if he did it up when competing not just to save the poor guy from an awful chill but also to enhance the aerodynamics.

Of course the cross over from running events to bobsleigh is not new as many teams search other sports for the explosive athletes that can give the push off the start blocks that are so important for sliding events.

Good Enough to Play. Unless You're Gay!?!

As a sportsman there is nothing I hate worse than telling someone hey shouldn't do that sport whether because of disability, race or sexual orientation. I'm a great advocate of the paralympian movement. I believe we should show racism the red card and same applies to homophobia.

Therefore the words of Rudi Assauer former player, ex-manager of German team Schalke 04 and now a player agent really upset me.

"If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: 'You have shown courage'. But then I would tell him to find something else to do.

"That's because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch hunts."

But why do such witch hunts exist? Because there are no openly gay professional footballers in any of the major leagues. It's not they aren't there, the ability to play football isn't based on the gender you prefer. Heck we have had Donal Og Cusack, of Cork's hurling team in October and Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas in December both coming out in far more physical sports than football.

In a related story American skater Johnny Weir has been deemed not family friendly enough for the touring show Stars on Ice. The skater who is a three times US national champion who came sixth in the Vancouver Olympics. He was the butt of jokes from Australian and French commentators at the event.

Australian Channel Nine presenters Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy took aim at his masculinity and pink and black costume, while French sportscasters Claude Mailhot and Alain Goldberg of the RDS network suggested he should take a gender test and that he was a "bad example".

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) claims that sponsors Smuckers and IMG Entertainment, refused to allow Weir to participate, because he refuses to clarify his sexuality.

They challenged his family friendliness by saying:

"To say that Weir is 'not family friendly' would be a clear jab at his perceived sexual orientation.

"Weir is extremely involved with his family. He is putting his younger brother through college, and supports the family financially because his father’s disability prohibits him from working."

Weir himself has not commented on this latest story, but in Vancouver about the comments he countered with this rather tongue in cheek riposte:

"There are some things I keep sacred. My middle name. Who I sleep with. And what kind of hand moisturiser I use."

The guy has class, see the rest of that press conference.

Let's not forget that post Olympics in the run up to the Worlds in 1976 the Gold Medalist John Curry was outed as gay. He was good enough to win gold, sportsmen if they are good enough shouldn't matter who they fancy.

What a Finish

Yesterday in the men's Boarder Cross final the Canadian's thought they were on to a another gold. Most of the way down the track Mike Robertson (red bib) had been in the lead. Defending champion Seth Westcott (black bib) had a poor start away from the gate. Indeed at the turn that had been the unseating of many through the rounds he was lying in fourth spot of the four.

But his compatriot Nate Holland fell leaving room for the unexpected French finalist Tony Ramoin who had never podiumed at any event sitting in silver. But the experience of Westcott showed as he carried speed through the technical end to the Whistler course, overtaking first Romoin and then on the last corner overhauling the Canadian. As you can see from the picture above over the last jump it was still close but a perfect landing saw Westcott take the gold once again and Canada had to settle for a silver.

It was better than they fared in the men's downhill where Eric Guay coming in fifth. But American Bode Miller attacked the top of the course to become an early leader, but he was later edged out by edged our Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by 0.02 of a second. But the cowbells were soon ringing in force as Swiss Didier Defago took another seven hundredths out of that lead for gold.

Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo had a very happy start to the Chinese year of the tiger lifting gold in the figure skating pairs, fellow Chinese pair Pang Qing and Tong Jian took silver and Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy the bronze.

It's Friday so...Winter Olympics

Today the winter Olympics kick off so how about a little look at some of those Olympic sports just not at they would be able to perform in that competition.

Of course we need that thing of beauty the BBC ident to kick us all off.



First up there is this video of Alexei Yagudin in 2005. I'm sure Wendy Fraser and Caron Lindsay with both appreciate the gratuitous shirt removal half way.



So moving on to the pairs and here we have the odd couple in 1993 at the World's gold medalist Kurt Browning and silver medalist Elvis Stojko 'paired' off with this.



Of course watching this it would be hard to believe Kurt Browning was once a World Champion, or then again maybe not.



Ok what about some British involvement. How about some Highland Ice Dancing from the British stars John and Sinead Kerr. Watch out for a rather unorhtodox lift that gets a gasp from the crowd at 2:41 into this and again at 3:01. Which seeing as my ex used to attend the same highland teacher as these two would be interesting to get her take on this.



So there you have it. Qualifying for the Ski Jumping is first up you can see that at 18:00 on the BBC Red Button, the Open Ceremonry kicks off live at 01:45 on BBC2 and the red button.