PARIS (AP) — When Charline Van Snick flirted with another female athlete after winning the bronze medal in Judo in the 2012 London Olympic Games, she said her coach told her she needed to stay in the closet for the future of her career.
“It was a moment when I didn’t feel like myself,” the 33-year-old retired Belgian Olympian said. “He said, Charline, you have to fit in the box. Everyone is looking at you and you have to be straight. ... I understood that it’s not a place to be yourself, it’s not a place to be LGBTQ+.”
The Paris Olympics broke a record by having 193 openly LGBTQ+ athletes competing, according to Outsports, a website compiling a database of openly queer Olympians. The count surpassed the 186 athletes at the COVID-19-delayed Tokyo Olympics held in 2021.
While the Olympic Games have made giant strides in the years since — the Paris 2024 Olympics set a record for the most athletes who are openly LGBTQ+ — advocates and athletes say international athletics have a long way to go in opening up to the queer community. More here from AP