Breathtakingly beautiful figure skating routine wins second Olympic gold for Team LGBT+
Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of Team France compete during the Ice Dance Free Dance on day ten of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games (Cui Nan/China News Service via Getty Images)
France has scored a gold medal for its “breathtaking” figure skating routine, the second gold achieved by LGBT+ athletes at this year’s Winter Olympics.
France’s Guillaume Cizeron, who is openly gay, and his partner Gabriella Papadakis not only won the gold medal but smashed a world record with a score of 226.98.
The pair’s win comes after they achieved a silver medal at the previous Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadakis were a favourite to win gold in 2018, however they lost their top spot after a wardrobe mishap in which Cizeron accidentally unclipped the back of Papadakis’s dress.
Speaking about their 2018 silver medal win, Cizeron said: “It made us want that gold medal more than anything else. And I think we’ve never worked that hard for a specific goal.”
Speaking to Out magazine in 2020, Cizeron explained what ice dancing means to him.
“I was lucky enough to find a space where I was able to express myself and feel included and supported,” he said.
“Figure skating wasn’t just a sport to me. The rink was the only place except home where I was lifted up and not torn down for my mannerisms. Skating brought me so much confidence and allowed me to discover myself in a safe environment.
“When I finally did get the courage to come out, I was fortunate enough to have a supportive family and to be born in a country where my existence wasn’t a crime.”
The 2022 games are the queerest Olympics 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.
“Team LGBT+” won its first gold medal of the year when bisexual speed skater Ireen Wüst claimed her sixth Winter Olympics gold medal for the Netherlands in the women’s 1,500-meter final.
The 35-year-old Wüst, who is retiring next month, told reporters after the event: “It’s really hard to describe… A lot of emotions, especially the good ones. I don’t realise it yet. It’s insane, actually.”
With this win, she has gone down in Olympics history as the first athlete to claim individual gold medals at five consecutive games.
