Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff is just one of the many out and proud LGBTIQA+ athletes taking part in the Beijing Winter Olympics.

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There are twice as many athletes who have publicly shared that they are part of the LGBTIQA+ communities than at the previous games in 2018. Reports suggest there are 35 queer athletes taking part in the games this time round.

Canada has 10 openly LGBTIQA+ athletes in their team including ice hockey players Jamie Lee Rattray, Emily Clark, Mélodie Daoust and Jill Saulnier. While the USA has six LGBTIQA+ team members and Great Britain has four.

Skier Gus Kenworthy has previously competed for the USA, but this time round he’s part of team Great Britain. Kenworthy was born in England but grew up in the USA, his mother is English.

In the figure skating you’ll find Armenia’s Simon Proulx Sénécal, Canada’s Eric Radford and Paul Poirier, France’s Guillaume Cizeron and Kevin Aymoz, Great Britain’s Lewis Gibson, Italy’s Filippo Ambrosini, and the USA has Timothy LeDuc and Jason Brown, while Amber Glenn is a reserve.

Australia’s Belle Brockoff will be competing in the snowboarding, as will Sarka Pancochova from the Czech Republic.

Ice Hockey is the sport where there is a lot of LGBTIQA+ representation, but there are also queer athletes taking part in Ski Jumping, Skeleton, the Biathlon, Curling and Skiing.

Tune in to see Australia’s Belle Brockoff complete in the Women’s Snowboarding Cross on Wednesday 9th February, the action kicks off from 11am. 

OIP Staff

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