U.S. Pairs Skater Timothy LeDuc to Be First Nonbinary Winter Olympian
The Washington Post. “So often queer people have to adjust themselves and sacrifice authenticity to achieve success.”In 2019, LeDuc reportedly became the first out queer athlete to win gold in the U.S.
pairs figure skating event, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.In a recent interview with NBC Sports’ My New Favorite Olympian podcast, LeDuc discussed their experience as someone who identifies as nonbinary. “For me, as a person that exists and really thrives outside of the binary, it can be very complicated sometimes,” LeDuc said.“There are going to be the people that don’t understand it or would be very quick to push me back into the box of, you know, they look at me, they see that I have a beard or they look at maybe my physical characteristics and say, ‘You’re a boy.
Act like a boy. What are you doing?’” they explained.LeDuc and Cain-Gribble will be joined by Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier as the other pairs team that will represent the U.S.
during the Beijing Olympics.The two pairs “join previously nominated athletes Mariah Bell, Karen Chen, and Alysa Liu on the 2022 US Olympic Figure Skating Team,” US Figure Skating, CNN reports.The Olympics are scheduled for February 4 to 20.At last summer’s Tokyo Olympics there were several athletes who were nonbinary including Canadian soccer midfielder Quinn and U.S.
