American skier Jake Adicoff has become the first out gay athlete to become a winter Paralympic champion, winning four gold medals at this year’s Paralympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Adicoff competes in the vision-impaired category, and according to PinkNews, he vowed to bring home the four medals he eventually won. The 30-year-old won gold in the sprint visually impaired, 10km visually impaired, 20km freestyle visually impaired, and the 4 x 2.5km mixed relay.
When speaking to Outsports about his wins, Adicoff expressed how important it was for him to represent the LGBTQ+ community at the elite level. Adicoff says he upped his game after competing in the 2022 Beijing Paralympics. “This is pretty much the same goal that I had for 2022 in China, but I don’t think I fully believed I was gainful of that in Beijing,” he told Outsports. “I think that, over the past four years, the biggest thing I’ve had to work on is confidence and believing in the training and the effort I’ve put behind all of this.”
According to Out, though there were 665 athletes from 50 countries participating this year, with only six out LGBTQ+ Paralympians competing across five different sports. All out LGBTQ+ athletes were either from Team USA or Team Great Britain.
Congratulations Jake!
